Two departments shouted "Chinese medicine medical technology": stop naming it indiscriminately

Source | "medical" public number

January 26, the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine and the National Health Commission jointly issued a document, said to "standardize the naming of Chinese medicine medical technology", clearly put forward the "three no's": no exaggerated, self-promoting, unrealistic terms, no misleading terms for patients. The "three no's": no exaggerated, self-promoting or unrealistic terms, no terms that mislead patients, and no vulgar or feudal superstitious terms.

The full name of the notice is "on the standardization of medical institutions of Chinese medicine medical technology named to strengthen the management of the clinical application of Chinese medicine technology notice".

In addition to further standardizing the naming, the "notice" also proposed to strengthen the clinical application of Chinese medical technology, strict supervision of Chinese medical technology.

After the name change, Chinese medicine technology or "no characteristics"

According to the "Notice", Chinese medicine medical technology should be named in line with the theory of Chinese medicine, scientific norms, short and accurate, reflecting the academic characteristics of Chinese medicine, the use of Chinese medicine terminology.

The Notice gives a "standardized criteria" for naming. It says that medical institutions carrying out TCM medical technology with the same operating methods and connotations as those in the "TCM Medical Technology Manual" and the "National Medical Service Price Item Specification" should use the names of TCM medical technology in the "Manual" and the "Specification," and should not name their own medical technology.

Shanxi Province, Shanyang County, the former deputy director of the Health Bureau Xu Yucai read the "Notice", for example, if an acupuncture treatment technology, named "Qijiao Wu Jie Acupuncture and Moxibustion", belongs to the jurisdiction of the "Notice" is "self-naming".

"The medical profession" search found that, as described in the "Notice", "complicated and arbitrary, a technique more than one" and other issues, in the public Chinese medicine hospitals in a wide range.

Guangxi hospital in the official website of the "characteristics of the treatment" column, said it improved, the application of more than 10 kinds of Chinese medicine external therapy, including the Huatuo pinch point string needle therapy, flash can therapy, hot ironing therapy, meridian flow injection method of body acupuncture.

A hospital in Suzhou opened a "sub-health specialty clinic" in March 2021 to provide medical services such as moxibustion.

Jiaxing, Zhengzhou and other institutions carry out "balanced fire cupping" treatment. It is said to be a kind of cupping therapy, based on the theory of yin and yang, the theory of nerve conduction as a pathway to the core of their own balance, is the use of different cupping techniques, the role of the human body, a non-pharmacological natural balance of the therapy.

In addition, a number of Chinese hospitals have "fire dragon moxibustion". Relevant introduction shows that this technology originated in the Jin Dynasty, is the emperor's health care method. The name is due to "fire through the meridians, warm the abdomen and back, like a dragon flying".

The same therapy in Shiyan City, a hospital preaching, known as "fire therapy". This technique is not included in the Manual, Norms.

"Fire therapy belongs to the same category as moxibustion in Chinese medicine, but in the textbooks of Chinese medicine, there is moxibustion but not fire therapy." In 2018, "surging news" quoted Li Changshi, a national famous old Chinese medicine expert successor and deputy chief physician of acupuncture and moxibustion department of Yueyang Hospital of Integrative Medicine affiliated with Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, as saying.

"All along, Chinese medicine diagnosis and treatment technology naming irregularities are widespread. This is related to the culture of Chinese medicine." Xu Yucai told the "medical profession", Chinese medicine advocates "ancestral secret prescriptions" "unique stunts", and "metaphysics" Born together. Its theory comes from yin and yang, five elements, heaven and man accordingly. Many treatments and prescriptions are indistinguishable from feudal superstitions.

Xu Yucai said that after the standardization of naming, it may affect the promotion of the corresponding Chinese medical technology and services. This is because once the naming is done according to the norms, the technical features cannot be shown.

The naming of proprietary Chinese medicines "six don'ts"

The standardized naming of traditional Chinese medicine also caused heated debate in 2017.

On November 20 of that year, the former State Food and Drug Administration issued the "Technical Guiding Principles for the Naming of Generic Names of Proprietary Chinese Medicines", which puts forward three basic principles for the naming of proprietary Chinese medicines, namely, "scientific simplicity and conciseness, and avoiding renaming", "standardized naming, and avoiding exaggerated therapeutic effect " "Reflect the traditional cultural characteristics".

At the same time, the "Principles" listed "six nots", which are:

No vulgar, superstitious terminology should be used;

Names should not be duplicated with the existing generic names of pCms, except for dosage forms, and to avoid the creation of the same name and the same formula;

Generally, no names of people, places, enterprises, or endangered species should be used.

Generally, the names of people, places, enterprises or endangered protected animals and plants should not be used;

The code name, the harmonic naming of nouns with specific meanings should not be used. For example: X0X, the harmonization of the names of celebrities, etc.;

Should not be used in modern medicine, pharmacology, anatomy, physiology, pathology, or therapeutics of the relevant terminology, such as: cancer, anti-inflammatory, antihyperglycemic, antihypertensive, hypolipidemic and so on.

No exaggerated, self-promoting, unrealistic terms should be used, such as: powerful, quick-acting, imperial, secret, as well as spirit, treasure, essence, etc.

The Principles were previously released in January 2017 as an "Exposure Draft". The contents of the two versions are generally the same, the main difference is the "applicable object".

Beijing Youth Daily said that the "draft for comment" stipulates that the principles are applicable to both new Chinese medicines and original proprietary Chinese medicines. Rough statistics show that if the "one-size-fits-all" requirement is applied, about 5,000 kinds of pCms need to be renamed. "This has triggered heated discussions and even questions from all walks of life."

Beijing Youth Daily commented that this is to standardize the naming of pCms based on Western medicine, and that this impractical approach can only "do bad things out of good intentions". The actual effect is to deny the characteristics of Chinese medicine, culture and inheritance of tradition.

In the face of strong public opinion, around March 2017, the former State Food and Drug Administration said that the new rules on the naming of proprietary Chinese medicines do not involve old names. Older pCms do not need to be renamed.

And according to the final release of the Principles, for the generic names of listed pCms, the focus will be on regulating cases of exaggerated efficacy or vulgarity of terms, and categorization will be carried out in batches.

The lack of "quality control" of Chinese medical technology

The aforementioned "Notice" also mentioned the strict regulation of Chinese medical technology. Including as soon as possible to promote the establishment of Chinese medicine medical technology quality control system, improve the management of Chinese medicine medical technology system, strengthen quality control, carry out a short period of time, the risk of clinical application of Chinese medicine medical technology for daily monitoring and regular assessment, timely feedback to the medical institutions quality control and assessment results, and continuous improvement of the quality of clinical application of Chinese medicine medical technology, etc..

Xu Yucai pointed out that, at present, China's traditional Chinese medicine technology has been established part of the technical quality control standards and quality control system, but not systematic, not standardized.

The Chengdu Municipal Health and Family Planning Supervision and Law Enforcement Detachment wrote "A Study on Countermeasures for the Regulation of Traditional Chinese Medicine Medical Services in Chengdu City," saying, "There must be national statutory standards for diagnosis and treatment means of TCM, and national statutory standards for traditional Chinese medicine as well. The lack of standards will not only hinder the overall development of the Chinese medicine industry, but also bring the real problem of regulation that there is no way to follow. To enhance the efficiency of regulation and change the passive situation of regulators in their work, it is necessary to put the standardization of Chinese medicine, the development of standards and norms for Chinese medicine health care institutions, personnel and services on the agenda, which cannot be elevated to the national level in a short period of time, and it is recommended that local legislation be used to give a clear definition of Chinese medicine diagnosis and treatment means, and that for the existence of ambiguity or conceptual overlapping of services, it is recommended that the formation of an expert group to study the development of a list-type catalog, or to clarify the sources of authoritative opinions that can be adopted in the future."

Source:

1. Notice on regulating the naming of Chinese medical technology in medical institutions to strengthen the management of clinical application of Chinese medical technology. Website of the Chinese Medicine Bureau

2. Handbook of Traditional Chinese Medicine Medical Technology.

3. National Medical Service Price Item Specification.

4. Circular of the General Administration of China on the Release of Technical Guidelines for the Naming of Generic Names of Proprietary Chinese Medicines. General Administration of Food and Drug Administration.GGTG-2017-11778

5. Study on Countermeasures for Supervision of Traditional Chinese Medicine Medical Services in Chengdu City. Chengdu Health and Family Planning Supervision and Law Enforcement Detachment