# Science and Chinese medicine

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-and-chinese-medicine/193713>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [August 8, 2003, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-and-chinese-medicine/193713 "2003-08-08T00:51:31Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![raygirvan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ac91a4/32.png) [@raygirvan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raygirvan)\
**Post date:** [August 8, 2003, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-and-chinese-medicine/193713/21 "2003-08-08T19:30:47Z")

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_the reason is that there are no profit for pharmaceuticals to pursue this_

But, as others have said, this just isn’t true. Obviously there’s no profit in (say) proving that brewing up a cup of tea using common plant X cures illness Y. However, the picture is more likely to be that plant X shows signs of pharmacological properties, but the trad method of using it gives a dose so variable that it’s an unreliable treatment. If there’s a bad need for cures for illness Y, then there’s definitely mileage in research to develop mass-market forms with standard dosages. Case in point: artemisinin again.

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