In recent years there have been increasing indications that China would like to improve its image in the global public with regard to environmental and animal welfare.
It sent out a promising signal: China’s decision to ban the consumption and trade of wild animals could have changed the fate of the countless animals plagued by the illegal wildlife trade for the better.
But right from the start, the ban excluded certain areas such as the medical use of animal products.
Ironically, the law, purportedly designed to protect wildlife, has seen the tremendous rise of a wildlife exploitation industry that happened in China’s past
Why?
This is now revealed in the course of the corona crisis: China’s National Health Commission recently published the recommendation for the treatment of the coronavirus with the help of a recipe from traditional medicine (TCM), which contains bear bile, among other things.
This is tapped from collar bears and sun bears as part of an extremely painful procedure – mostly under cruel conditions and up to twice a day.
New laws also enable China’s bear bile farms to continue.
The Chinese Animal Welfare Act, enacted in 1989, provides for wild animals as a resource that can be used for human benefit. In 2016, it was changed to further legitimize the commercial use of wildlife, and it was explicitly stated that animals can be used for traditional Chinese medicine.
China is considered to be the center of the bear bile industry.
According to reports, around 10,000 bears live there in captivity – many of them originally come from the wild. The use of traditional healing methods and the use of animal products in medicine has been promoted by the government in China for years, also currently in the treatment of corona patients.
The Chinese government recommends using a bear bile product along with a range of traditional herbal medicines to treat severe symptoms caused by COVID-19
This is all the more shocking given that wildlife management is believed to be the source of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A current study by Chinese scientists shows that formulations with bear bile are actually already being used.
The publication describes a clinical study in Guangzhou in which 72 patients, all of whom suffered from serious to severe consequences of the coronavirus, received a so-called “Tan Re Qing” injection.
The product, which in addition to bear bile powder also consists of other animal and vegetable ingredients, is also sold in China via online pharmacies, among others.
Bile juice is drawn off from them twice a day in an unbearable procedure.
This intense, excruciating process makes the bears moan and tremble constantly. If they still have the strength to do so.
For this purpose the farmers on the Chinese bear farms impaled catheters through the abdominal wall into the gallbladder.
A tube is passed through this tube directly into the organ without anesthesia.
There are different types of biliary drainage – with latex catheters, metal corsets, metal catheters, the free-drip method…
The metal catheter is usually between 13 and 19 centimeters long, heavily contaminated and causes unimaginable, permanent pain and damage that will sooner or later perish the bears.
It is considered “humane” to do without the catheter and let the juice drip from an opening in the abdomen, which is surgically connected directly to the bile.
So that the animal does not tear its pipe or hose out of the inflamed wound in pain, it is fixed in a steel corset and permanently condemned to complete immobility.
We speak out strongly against torturing bears for medical purposes.
We urge the Chinese government to remove this drug from their recommended list and include only traditional herbal medicines.
In neighboring countries such as Vietnam, drawing bear bile has been banned since 2005, and in Indonesia there are only a few known illegal bile farms.
The use of remedies with bear bile, which contain the active ingredient ursodeoxycholic acid, is – regardless of any medical benefit – completely superfluous, and yet associated with extreme suffering for the animals
There are numerous herbal alternatives, but also synthetically produced ursodeoxycholic acid.
The use of the animal product cannot be justified in view of the animal suffering it entails.
China and Vietnam have banned the consumption of wild animals. This ban must be extended to include the use of wildlife in traditional medicine, preventing animals such as bears, tigers and pangolins from being abused.
https://www.worldanimalprotection.org/news/cruel-bear-bile-industry-thriving-despite-pandemic-risks
https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1906612/seeing-animals-resource-cruel-substitute-real-wildlife
https://welttierschutz.org/tierleid-trotz-alternativen/
And I mean…The cruel bear bile business is not new.
What is new is the hocus-pocus with the healing of the corona symptoms through the.
In the flood of reports (mostly fake information) on the corona virus, this message was largely lost.
If we got that right now a product from the wildlife trade – Gall fluid from bears – recommended as a drug against a disease that is believed to have broken out in a wildlife market – COVID-19!!
Not only is this a crime for the animals, it is dangerous charlatanry against human health.
It is just as dangerous to believe that bear bile cures corona as it is to believe that vaccinations against Covid 19 are safe because they have been tested on animals!
According to the current state of knowledge, there is no evidence for the effectiveness of bear bile against Covid-19.
The recommendation of the Chinese Health Commission sends the wrong message.
Because this will only benefit the illegal wildlife trade, human health will go away empty-handed.
My best regards to all, Venus
World Animals Voice 