Traditional Medicine and UNESCO

Several remedies used by modern medicine derive from traditional ones: modern science has found a way of evaluating them, and has recognized the efficacy of various traditional medical practices. However, a great many other traditional medicines and medical practices have been subject to the same evaluation and have been found to be either inefficient or actually detrimental to health. One example among countless others is the bloodletting extensively used by traditional European medicine for centuries, before it was realized that it was extremely harmful.

It is the sacrosanct right of anyone who is ill to choose their cure, or even to opt for no cure if that is their wish. However, there is an equally sacrosanct obligation upon anyone, including the press but above all upon institutions, if they do not wish to lose public confidence and their reason for existing in the first place, not to compromise the reliability of genuine medical advice given to citizens. If Mr Y wishes to resort to bloodletting to cure himself of something, that is his business. But if an institution recommends, guarantees or promotes in any way the use of bloodletting, in the name of a ‘respect for traditions’, this institution is failing in its duty. It is also committing a criminal act.

This is not an academic question. A dear friend of mine, Simonetta, died before she was thirty years old, leaving behind two motherless children, because instead of relying on modern medicine to cure a breast tumour – a pathology that today has extremely high survival rates – she trusted instead in ‘traditional medicine’. Whoever has given credit to the supposed efficacy of traditional medicine, and therefore influenced my friend and many others, should have her death and her children’s lack of a mother on their conscience – together with thousands of other, similar deaths.

When we also discover that there is a highly lucrative trade in alternative medicine worth millions, profiting from the hopes of the afflicted and refusing any independent evaluation of the efficacy of their products and practices, then we know that we are dealing with a serious problem.

Recently, the international press has been reporting an ongoing argument between India and China, who are litigating the paternity of traditional Tibetan medical practices. They have each demanded that UNESCO should register these practices exclusively in their name in its list of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

UNESCO’s list of cultural patrimony cannot be used to recognize everything that is ‘traditional’. If this was the case, it would have to include slavery, forced child labour, the right of husbands to beat their wives, and human sacrifice.

The list recognizes that part of cultural heritage which we all wish to preserve and to see thrive. Traditional medicine, even if it has given us a useful legacy, and one yet to be fully and properly explored, does not belong to a heritage that we want to preserve per se, because it is also full of remedies that an independent scientific evaluation would find to be inefficient or harmful.

As much as the actively harmful ingredients and practices of traditional medicine, its inefficiency can be lethal. It was thanks to the uselessness of a traditional South American cure that my friend died from her breast tumour.

The letter ‘S’ in UNESCO stands for ‘Scientific’ (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). A UNESCO recognition of traditional medicine through its inclusion in the list of the Cultural Patrimony of Humanity would be something that India, or China, could boast about. It would constitute a blanket recognition of the value of ancient practices by the foremost international authority for education, science and culture. It would provide a fabulous business opportunity for many. UNESCO would lose all credibility. It would be nothing short of an act of criminal irresponsibility.fn1