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Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) used to be the only cure for Chinese patients, but recent decades have seen Western, or modern, medical science take its place.

Now TCM risks not being allowed even to play second fiddle.

Those who believe in Western medicine want TCM to be totally driven out of the official medical circle, calling it "unscientific." They are collecting online signatures to urge the authorities to cancel TCM as a legally accepted medical option.

The Constitution article in which the State promotes the development of TCM, they urge, should be deleted and measures should be taken within five years to make Western medical science the only officially accepted option.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Health said such a move represents an ignorance of history and the tremendous contributions TCM has made to the promotion of health of the Chinese people.

Both opinions have firm supporters. Such a debate has been going on for years, and will continue.

The "stop TCM" initiative is similar to a movement waged in the 1920s and 1930s, when the government proposed to stop the TCM practice and met fierce opposition from the public.

Eighty years on, Western medicine has got the upper hand while TCM is going downhill. But that does not mean we can simply support one and stop the other. Any formal decision must be preceded by full public debate.

Debate is often a prelude to consensus and takes us nearer to truth. This helps map out more rational decisions.

It makes sense for the debate to give both sides the opportunity to present what they believe is right and, in the field of public affairs, give more room for policy-makers to make decisions.

In the current debate, opponents' demand for the "rooting out" of TCM is dangerous.

TCM has its disadvantages. It is hard to standardize in accordance with modern "scientific" practice. But its usefulness has been proven in its more than 2,000-year history.

It would be reckless for us to drive TCM out of history simply because it follows a course different from that of modern Western medical science.

No scientific discipline is perfect. Many modern Western medicines, for example, have serious side effects.

If total trust in TCM is like superstition, absolute rejection of it is not "scientific" at all.

(Xinhua News Agency October 12, 2006)