By Xuefei Chen Axelsson
STOCKHOLM, May 10, (Greenpost) — Swedish Radio and Aftonbladet reported on May 6 that Swedish Customs had tested the Chinese traditional herb content medicine Lianhuaqingwen which they confiscated and gave a conclusion that the medicine doesn’t function and only contains mint in it.
This report was spread to China and Chinese medical academicians and relevant organisations immediately reacted on this news saying that the Swedish conclusion was not right.
The news said Swedish official in Drugs Administration lab said he didn’t find enough evidence to show the medicine is useful because he only found mint in it, but didn’t mention anything else and claimed that there was no any relevant articles about it.
This conclusion shows that he didn’t find the article about Lianhuaqingwen, nor read it. He neither found nothing else in the medicine or he found something but he didn’t know what they were.
News from Chinese Dr. Li said in fact there were 13 ingredients or components in the medicine. But only mint has a well recognised chemical format while the other Chinese herbs didn’t have chemical format.
The 13 ingredients are Lianqiao which is Forsythoside E, Jinyinhua which is honeysukle, similar to dandelion, luding, Rutin, mahuang, dahuang, which is Epherdra, bitter apricot core, plaster, banlangen which is a well-known antivirus medicine in China. Banlangen was invented in mid 1990s. I remember once I was asked to translate the specifications of the medicine because my radio people were often asked to do this kind of translation job. But I refused to do it because I felt I knew so little about medicine knowledge. But over the years Banlangen has become a daily medicine like Alvedon in Sweden. If people have virus type of flu, people can take Banlangen. If they have bacteria type of cold, they can just take the ganmaochonji a kind of small particle type of powder and just putting it into a cup of hot water and drink it.
Mianmaguanzhong, I do not know what it is, but Yuxingcao is also a well known name in dealing with eyes, Huoxiang is also a very common but well effective Chinese medicine. Hongjingtian is produced in Tibet and famous for its function to help you to have enough oxegon. When we were in Tibet, a colleague felt he was lack of oxegon, he went to buy oxegon bottle and Hongjingtian. Gancao was also a Chinese medicine both in tablet form or in raw herb form. One can swallow tablet, but drink water which soaks the gancao herb. The last one is exactly mint.
Mint is indeed a good component for various kinds of Chinese medicine. Mint sugar in Lidl actually helps you if you have a sore throat.
Academician Zhong Nanshan who was the key person in leading the campaign against Covid-19. President Xi Jinping was leading the campaign by sending hospitals, doctors and nurses and all the supplies through various provinces, Zhong Nanshan was a symbol of technical part, a lot of information was sent out through Zhongs name. Academician Zhang Boli who has retired at home, but he was summoned to lead in the campaign with his rich Chinese medicine knowledge. They both are authoritative while Zhong was in western medicine and Zhang was in Chinese medicine. But both recommended Lianhuaqingwen. During China’s campaign against covid-19, it was a perfect example of cooperation and combination of Chinese and western medicines.
Let’s look at the corona virus again. It is a virus, but the symptom when people catch it is coughing, fever, running or drying nose and fatigue. Thus the symptom is similar to a serious cold. Only when people are either too weak or too healthy to fight against the virus with no strength or too much strength, fiercely, then it hurt your organs especially the lung. The most typical symptom in the end is respiratory problem. But at the beginning, you just got a cold.
And all these components or ingredients of Lianhuaqingwen are useful in fighting against cold. Thus it can almost be treated as a most powerful kind of medicine in treating cold.
According to a joint study by researchers in Nanjing Chinese Medicine University and Shanghai Drug Research Institute under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lianhuaqingwen is so far the most functional medicine in inhibiting corona virus from reproduction and curing the fever of the patients.
According to Professor Fang Bangjiang from Longhua Hospital of Shanghai Chinese Medicine University, there were only 20-30 percent of the patients have fever. Most of them did not have fever. He was sent to Leishenshan Hospital China built within ten days after the closedown of Wuhan on January 23. ( link http://www.greenpost.se/2020/05/02/%e9%9b%b7%e7%a5%9e%e5%b1%b1%e6%8a%97%e7%96%ab%e4%b8%93%e5%ae%b6%e6%96%b9%e9%82%a6%e6%b1%9f%e6%95%99%e6%8e%88%e7%9b%b4%e6%92%ad%e4%b8%8e%e7%91%9e%e5%85%b8%e3%80%81%e7%be%8e%e3%80%81%e5%8a%a0%e3%80%81/)
Fang was in charge of a unit which had 108 patients who had light symptoms. He found that the patients had one unified symptom, that was panic and fear, worries and weak nerves. After trying western medicine for one week, he found it not only did not give positive results but give negative effects on liver. Thus he prescribed all the time Chinese medicine after a week. The Chinese medicine mainly calmed down the patients, relieved them from panic feelings and got them sleep better.
As a result, no one became more serious and no death happened in his unit. In comparison, those who were treated with western way or medicine, a lot of them could become worse and were sent to ICU.
According to the research paper, Lianhuaqingwen was used for severe patients too and by alleviating their fever or other symptoms, lives were rescued.
But so far, experts admit that there were no cure all kind of medicine against covid-19. But as a supportive medicine or healthy product, those who are confirmed to get covid-19 positive, they can take Lianhuaqingwen. Whether it works or not, one can feel it after three days. If after three days it did not function, you feel worse, then you must call the doctor again.
Sweden has tried its best to deal with the covid-19 and avoided the problem China had at the beginning of getting the hospital too crowded and almost collapse. Sweden wanted to let the covid-19 happen slowly, which is a good idea.
However, the virus loves people and can quickly spread from one person to two persons if you have close contacts, for example in crowds, not necessarily to kiss each other. It can spread through spit and sneeze or cough. But if people keep themselves isolated, the virus couldn’t find another person to reproduce itself, it will die with the recovery of the person. Thus isolation is very very important.
The earlier, quicker to isolate, the better. For example, if Swedish cancelled the travel, canceled the Eurovision, canceled the birthday party, and isolated quicker and earlier in other areas where you just found a couple of cases, then the virus probably got wiped out by now. But no one knows. Maybe it would take two to three months any way.
Thanks to Swedish people who are good at keeping social distance and mostly follow the government instructions, Swedish people did not sacrifice too much freedom and the society continues to function, which can be seen as a positive aspect. But if people especially those who got infected, but not to the extend to go to hospitals intensive care, maybe if they take the Lianhuaqingwen, it can not only comfort them, but also prevent them from getting worse.
To say it just got mint in it and does not function, it sounds like it is just the mint candy. But it is simply not true.
In fact, Lianhuaqingwen was just one of the Chinese medicines that dealt with covid-19. I guess it became famous because of its mass production and packaging. Qingfei Paidu Tang or Lung cleaning and poison eradicating syrup was also very popular during covid 19 campaign in Wuhan, Central China. But this kind of medicine is pure herb and needs to be boiled each time for each person. It is hard to get mass production. Chinese doctors also stressed that it was one person with his or her own prescription according to his or her own symptom.
Chinese medicine does not stress killing the virus or fighting the virus, instead, it stressed that the medicine helps patients to get stronger in immune system and physical strength by getting rid of or alleviating the symptom.
Covid-19 is indeed a strong virus which is very hard to deal with because it reproduces itself so quickly once it entered humans body and attacked the lung. By fighting back with the immune system, patients other organs such as liver or heart or kidney could be damaged too. That was why a lot of people died of not only virus, but also several other combined diseases. The virus can damage your immune system. Thus, the Chinese doctors emphasized that people should eat enough protein and sleep well. Getting yourself strong is the key to deal with the covid 19.
The following is the research paper about Lianhuaqingwen.