An article on Chinese herbal medicine in the latest issue of the MIT journal Technology Review is interesting for two reasons. One is the simple fact that a practice, considered “fringe science” at best by the U.S. medical and drug research communities, should get exposure in a publication devoted to technological advances. The other is that, according to the author, Arielle Emmett, the differences separating Eastern and Western medicine are grounded in different philosophies of how the sick should be treated rather than in how drug research should be carried out. In fact, researchers from both cultures often employ similar techniques to achieve vastly different ends.

Researchers in the United States continually seek a “magic bullet,” a single pure compound that is effective against a broad spectrum of cancers or viral diseases. A number of years ago, expectations centered on interferon, a natural protein with pronounced antiviral activity and the ability to stimulate the body’s immune system to fight cancer cells. Unfortunately, interferon did not prove to be the hoped for cure-all but the strong emphasis placed on it had the effect of stalling the search for new cancer drugs during the 1980s.

Despite the dangers of placing all of their “research eggs in one basket,” drug firms are still primarily interested in developing compounds whose purity can be rigorously maintained. A major reason is the rigid standards set by the Food and Drug Administration for drug testing and purity before they are allowed on the market.

The Eastern approach to medicine and, as a consequence, to the finding of effective drugs could hardly be more different. Emmett illustrates this difference with the story of a 50-year-old woman with advanced stomach cancer who checked out of a western-style hospital to place her fate in the hands of a herbalist. She was treated with a concoction of 90 separate herbal and animal preparations while being placed on a strict diet. Today, 13 years later, the woman is cancer-free while the cause for the near-spontaneous remission of her tumor remains unexplainable in terms of Western medicine.

The herbal doctor has an arsenal of nearly 6,000 substances available that are used to treat everything from headache to pregnancy complications to cancer. These are listed in a compendium known as the Chung Yao Ta Tsu Tien, parts of which date back more than 2,500 years. “The most important facet of herbal medicine,” says John Shen who practices in New York City, “is diagnosis.” The diagnosis, which blends physical symptoms and complaints with the patient’s personality, age, and sex, may list dozens of different conditions, each of which call for one or more herbal concoctions. Contrast this with the Western doctor’s aim of attacking a specific tumor or condition with a single drug, while ignoring the rest of the patient, and it is easy to see why the two approaches to healing find little common ground.

In spite of the reported successes by Eastern herbalists, most Western researchers regard them as little more than snake oil peddlers. Clinical trials from Asia are not considered reliable, says Randall Johnson of Smith Kline Beecham, “the reason we don’t get excited about reports of incredible response rates is that we’ve been seeing them for 50 years.” Johnson is working to isolate and purify a powerful anticancer agent, topotecan, from the Chinese tree camptotheca. Even so, he ignores “too good to be true” reports from Japanese researchers who have been treating ovarian and bowel cancers with extracts from the tree. “They get emotionally involved in the treatments and with the patients,” he says, “they become true believers.”

One reason Western researchers disbelieve Eastern results is that they often fail to get the same results with the pure active component from a plant that is claimed for the herbal extract that is hundreds of times weaker. The reason, counter the herbalists, is that there is a synergistic effect achieved when using the entire mixture that is lost when only a single component is isolated and used.

East and West will continue to meet in that both are pursuing anticancer drugs from natural sources as witnessed by the recent isolation of taxol from the Pacific Northwest yew. Until fundamental views of treatment converge this will be the only area of agreement, however, and don’t look for that any time soon.

Clair Wood is a science instructor at Eastern Maine Technical College and the NEWS science columnist.