In July this year, China’s Ministry of Health (MoH) commissioned an independent external mid-term review of progress in its current health system reform (HSR), itself designed after unprecedented input from six external agencies and the general public (1,2). In its draft report, as yet unreleased, the six-member team of eminent reviewers praises the leadership and financial commitment demonstra...

Conducting clinical trials of Chinese medicines (CM) in hospitals presents challenges for researchers. The success of hospital-based CM clinical trials may be influenced by the protocol design, including the maintenance of CM theory in compliance with scientific rigour and hospital guidelines and justified treatment approaches with results that can translate into clinical practice. Other influe...

One of the main focuses in Chinese Medicine research is the identification of efficacious components in Chinese herbal medicine (CHM). Studies in such area are difficult due to the complexity and the synergistic characteristics of CHM. Current methods to track and separate active components are not adequate to meet the needs of revealing effects and identify substances and pharmacological mecha...

1 Sinotech Engineering Consultants, LTD. Geotechnical Engineering Department, 12F, 171, Nanking E. Rd. Sec.5, Taipei 10570, Taiwan, Republic of China. 2 Department of Soil and Water Conservation, National Chung Hsing University, 250 Kuo Kuang Rd., Taichung 402, Taiwan, Republic of China. 3 Department of Hydraulic and Ocean Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan 70101, Taiwan, Repub...

Chinese traditional surgery, an important branch of traditional Chinese medicine, has contributed greatly to the people's health in the history. With the fast development of modern medicine, Chinese traditional surgery is faced with serious challenges and its shortcomings have appeared more and more evident. In this article, the authors analyzed some problems in the development of Chinese tradi...

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1938 www.thelancet.com Vol 372 December 6, 2008 transplantations. At present, 87 institutions have full approval from the Ministry of Health; 77 others have provisional approval and 18 months to comply with all the regulations. This number is a reduction from the more than 600 institutions that did transplants 1 year ago. Regulations have been set up to ban transplant tourism. The penalty for p...

Lida Teng, BSc, is a PhD student at the Centre for Pharmacognosy and Phytotherapy, School of Pharmacy, University of London; Debbie Shaw, BSc, is a research scientist at the Medical Toxicology Unit, Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, London; and Joanne Barnes, PhD, MRPharmS, is associate professor in herbal medicines at the School of Pharmacy, Faculty of Medical and Health Scie...