Ground broken for international TCM project

Ti Gong

Ground was broken on Wednesday for construction of the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) International Standardization Research Center at the Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine’s campus in Zhangjiang in the Pudong New Area.

The center will cover nearly 50,000 square meters with 12 floors above ground and one underground after completion in 18 months. 

It is expected to become a highland for world traditional medicine standardization and build up Shanghai as an international headquarters for traditional medicine research.

Xu Jianguang, president of the university, said it will build platforms for five research areas – TCM international standardization, international standardization of TCM in chronic disease prevention and treatment, TCM clinical technology standardization, international phenotypic studies featuring TCM and Chinese medicine innovation standardization.

“The center will enable us to integrate resources and coordinate talent more efficiently to promote TCM international standardization,” said Shen Yuandong, chair of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) technical committee for traditional Chinese medicine.

He said the lack of united standards had hindered TCM’s international development and the university had been working on standardization since 2009, when it was authorized by the World Health Organization to work out the 11th revision of the International Classification of Diseases.

The ISO technical committee for TCM was established in 2009 and now has more than 40 member countries and regions. It has published 64 international standards for TCM.

“Take acupuncture needles for example,” said Shen. “There are many producers around the world with diversified quality. Some inferior needles break when being used, which is dangerous. Therefore, we’ve developed standards for its material, length, sharpness, flintiness, tenacity and requirements in disinfection and storage. It was jointly worked out by 13 participating members and voted through by other members. With products produced under the standards, a producer in Suzhou has improved its annual exports by 30 percent.”

Shen said international standardization is important as it paves a way for the popularization of traditional Chinese medicine around the world.

He said that during the COVID-19 pandemic, some countries were interested in Chinese medicine which had proved effective in treatment, but could not import them due to lack of standards that could connect with local medicine regulations.

“We will focus more on such issues in the future to make TCM accessible to people around the world as we are a community with a shared future,” he said.

Ti Gong