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TCM Given Legal Status in Belgium and EU
Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has lately been given legal status in Belgium and EU countries, according to sources from China News Service.
For an increased number of people benefited from taking TCM as a regular remedy for health care acupuncture therapy has made an insurance item by Belgian insurers including Fortis Bank since January 1. 2002. In face of this situation, a TCM organization called EU TCM Union has been established for making a study of TCM pharmacology in EU countries.
With EU TCM Union there is also an EU TCM Association formed all the more on an EU scale in Belgium. With a membership formed of 29 TCM branches from 15 countries, it has its founding toward the end of exchanging views on the theory and practice of TCM and guaranteeing the legal rights of its members. An enlarged membership by the Association, with new perspective members from other non-EU countries, has been expected since EU is to be expanded.
Professor Lin Guoming has earlier been invited as a doctor of acupuncture and moxibustion from China's Zhejiang Province to join in Belgian Acupuncture Practitioners' League and has in the meantime been made a founding member of the 15-nation EU TCM Association.
The inauguration of EU TCM Union and of EU TCM Association means not merely legal recognition of traditional Chinese medicine on an EU scale. But the greater significance lies in the fact that mutual recognition and learning of TCM with Western medicine will form the main trend to advance the science of TCM pharmacology in the 21st century.
By PD Online staff member Yin Zhili
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