[水一帖] Fake News采访了那位拒喝中药汤剂的武汉老哥

Every morning and evening, the 38-year-old was handed a bag of brown soup -- a traditional Chinese remedy blended from over 20 herbs, including ephedra, cinnamon twigs and licorice root.
But unlike most patients around him, Xiong was skeptical of its efficacy and refused to drink it.
"In my opinion, it is a sheer placebo," said, Xiong, who was discharged in late February from the makeshift hospital run by TCM doctors where no Western medicine was provided, apart from medication for underlying conditions, such as high blood pressure.

"I think the effort to promote TCM worldwide is likely to make way in certain regions, like Africa. But unless the development and marketing of TCM (conform) to the modern standards, like what was done to artemisinin, it is unlikely to be so well-received in the Western world," said professor Huang from the Council on Foreign Relations.
Artemisinin is a globally recognized remedy for malaria derived from sweet wormwood, a plant used in TCM. Tu Youyou, the Chinese scientist who turned to ancient Chinese medical texts to find artemisinin, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2015.
The safety and effectiveness of TCM is still debated in China, where it has both adherents and skeptics. Though many of the remedies in TCM have been in use for hundreds of years, critics argue that there is no verifiable scientific evidence to support their supposed benefits.
"Almost all TCM products in China do not go through the rigorous procedures Western modern medicine typically goes through. That's partly why people don't trust TCM in the Western world," Huang said.