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Hong Kong Sends Traditional Chinese Medicine to Three Million Residents Telling Them it Works Against COVID-19 – But the Evidence Says No Such Thing

by Dr Roger Watson
4 April 2022 11:29 AM

Imagine the joy of three million people in Hong Kong when, this weekend, they received their “United we Fight the Virus” kits. It is not clear why the remaining four million were deprived of these kits but, given that I know a leading nursing academic and his family who received theirs it may be that the remaining population are considered dispensable. The kits contain COVID-19 rapid tests and KN95 masks and two packs of a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) called Lianhua Qingwen Jiaonang (LQJ) which will, allegedly, “clear scourge, remove toxin, diffuse the lung and discharge heat”. Apart from the fact that the Legislative Council of Hong Kong has not bothered to ask a native English speaker to check the above description of the purported action of LQJ, it appears that it has also not consulted anyone with any knowledge of medicine – real medicine – what any of that means.

“Clear scourge” is simply Chinglish gobbledegook; “diffuse the lung” is biologically meaningless and “discharge heat” defies the laws of thermodynamics. Whether or not LQJ is capable of the claim that it will “remove toxin” is another matter. But, notwithstanding that if something is “removed” it must go somewhere which is not specified, at least this is testable. In terms of “removal”, in conventional medical terms this means metabolic removal by “first pass” metabolic breakdown in the liver, commonly engaging the services of a liver microsome enzyme known as cytochrome P450. Otherwise, toxins are removed by the kidneys and excreted in the urine. How LQJ is involved in that process is unknown.

Lest the Hong Kong recipients of the Covid kits are in any doubt about when to use their supply of LQJ, they are advised that the indications are that it can be used for: “Patterns of heat toxin assailing the lung, manifested as fever, aversion to cold, muscle soreness, stuffy and runny nose, cough, headache, dry and sore throat, reddish tongue, and yellow or yellow and greasy tongue coating.” All they needed to add was ‘feeling a bit iffy’ and ‘having the sniffles’ and they would have had a full set of vague symptoms that would turn even the most resilient person towards the medicine cupboard.

But what about the testable claim that LQJ can “remove toxin”? One systematic review and meta-analysis which supports the anti-toxin action of LQJ was published in PLOS One by authors from mainland China, notably including only studies from mainland China. It concludes that: “The treatment of new pneumonia with traditional Chinese medicine lotus clearing plague can be used as an effective therapy to improve the clinical symptoms of new coronary pneumonia.” A promising conclusion, albeit couched in poorly edited Chinglish, and it should be noted that the “coronary” pneumonia means ‘coronavirus pneumonia’ as this was a review of studies on COVID-19.

As with many such reviews, the claims of efficacy in the abstract are not supported when the article is read in depth. Even within the abstract, the results section states: “A total of two articles were identified, including 154 patients.” It should be noted that two articles is the absolute minimum number for a meta-analysis according to the Cochrane Collaboration, which, essentially, sets the gold standard methodology for systematic review and meta-analysis. Thus, the minimum criteria were achieved but a deeper dive into the studies reveals a fatal flaw in both studies included. While the assessors of the outcomes of the included studies were blinded to whether the participants were in the treatment or control groups, as shown in Table 2 of the PLOS One article, the trial personnel and, crucially, the participants were not blinded. Therefore, randomised these trials these may have been but double-blinded – which is the gold standard for testing medications – they were not. Knowing whether or not you are receiving a treatment is important as the placebo effect comes into play, especially where a range of subjective symptoms is being assessed.

In terms of the outcome of treatment of people purportedly infected with COVID-19, a primary outcome was not specified for the studies included in the review as would be required, for example, by PROSPERO. This is to prevent what is referred to as ‘fishing’ for significant results amongst secondary outcomes.

The PLOS One article presents analyses in forest plots of a range of vague symptoms such as “fever”, “cough”, “fatigue” and “chest tightness”, all of which are subjective and none of which, even in constellation, are cardinal signs of COVID-19. None of the outcomes was the presence of the COVID-19 virus by, for example, a lateral flow test. Finally, the article includes funnel plots which are designed to detect publication bias – the phenomenon of burying studies which do not support the effect of the treatment, also referred to as the “bottom drawer phenomenon“. On this point, the Cochrane Collaboration is unambiguous in its handbook that the minimum number of studies required for a meaningful funnel plot is ten. Thus, the funnel plots in the PLOS One study are entirely meaningless.

It is surely relevant to note that the authors of the study reported in PLOS One were from mainland China and that the studies included in the meta-analysis, regardless of the poor methodology in both studies included and in the meta-analysis itself, were both published by Chinese authors. It is not possible to ascertain the quality of the journals where the studies are reported as, remarkably, they are not listed in the reference list. It is also relevant to note that TCM is officially pushed as policy by the Chinese Government, despite the general lack of evidence for efficacy. However, the Chinese Government has that angle covered as it has a law that prevents criticism of TCM. The Chief Executive of Hong Kong, Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, a Chinese Government approved appointee, also said: “The Government was open to the idea of giving part of its stockpile of oral antivirals to private clinics, which would join private hospitals in distributing the pills to infected residents.” The ‘antivirals’ (not demonstrated to have any such action) to which she refers are the traditional Chinese medicine LQJ. In the letter accompanying the Hong Kong Covid kit, in a typical act of Hong Kong Legislative Council arslikan, the Anti-Epidemic Team Hong Kong SAR says: “Thanks to the tremendous efforts of the Central Government in co-ordinating the procurement, production and transportation aspects, the SAR Government is able to timely purchase various medical supplies…”

It is worth noting that the TCM product LQJ included in the Hong Kong Covid pack is manufactured by Shijiazhuang Yiling Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd, which is located at 238 Tianshan Street High-Tech Zone Shijiazhuang, 050000 China. I can’t help thinking that Shijiazhuang Yiling Pharmaceutical Co. and the Chinese Government are cashing in on a rare opportunity via its puppet regime in the Special Administrative Region.

Here’s the letter in full from the Hong Kong SAR Government:

Dr. Roger Watson is Academic Dean of Nursing at Southwest Medical University, China. He has a PhD in biochemistry.

This article has been updated.

Tags: ChinaChinese Communist PartyHong KongLockdownsZero Covid

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76 Comments
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huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
1 year ago

If a country and it’s history have to be undermined and ultimately destroyed then our Flag has to go.

The spirit of this country, the very essence of Great Britain is enshrined within the Union Jack ergo it must be destroyed. We can’t have a one world government running the country while remnants of Britishers cling mournfully to their flag.

“Build Back Better” doncha know.

They can Firk right off.

185
0
Mogwai
Mogwai
1 year ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

Yes exactly, hux. There’s that godawful word again: ”Inclusive”. Because didn’t we feel just so excluded for all of these decades prior to 2024? I mean, what better way to feel *included*, right? FFS! Inclusivity equates to excluding white folk, from where I’m standing.
Tenuous link here, but you know I seldom come to the table empty-handed. Look at this UN ‘climate advisor’. Yes, the ‘climate crisis’ is not just ‘manmade’ but it is ‘white man-made’. But it’s the corrupt disgraceful UN, which recently unanimously appointed that bastion of equal rights for women, Saudi Arabia, to chair a gender equality forum next year, so it shouldn’t surprise us that they install this shameless racist biatch to chat toxic garbage to Useless Idiots;

”Meet Ayisha Siddiqa, a climate adviser for the UN. She claims the “white man” and “capitalism” are responsible for bringing life to “the verge of extinction” and calls white men k*llers, looters, and abusers.

Her account is filled with hateful anti-white posts.

Apparently, it’s totally fine to be disgustingly racist against white people if you work at the @UN”

https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1775191286032523366
.

92
-1
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
1 year ago
Reply to  Mogwai

Thanks Mogs 👍

Lovely bit of womanhood that Siddiqa. Bright too.

Last edited 1 year ago by huxleypiggles
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RW
RW
1 year ago
Reply to  Mogwai

A nice way to handle such a nasty bit of work would be to stop all payments of money taken from white people to her. That would cause her income to drop to about nothing and she’d henceforth be forced to save something more proportionate than planets.

42
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RW
RW
1 year ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

You’re getting the German treatment here (the one Britain and the USA co-invented) because to the people who talk of European fascism and colonialism (like the American guy who keeps writing about the new WHO pandemic treaty) you’re equally in the way and equally part of the forces of evil which have to be pushed aside.

11
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Mogwai
Mogwai
1 year ago
Reply to  RW

Well it does make one wonder just how many white people were in that audience actually…Something tells me a lot, so here we have another example of the nonsensical and toxic, ”white guilt” phenomena. Or basically just ‘delusional, treacherous Leftards’, as I call them. The kind that would attend a BLM protest/riot. Fully masktarded up, of course.

27
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Free Lemming
Free Lemming
1 year ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

Exactly. Very little of this insanity is organic. The objective is the communist goal of a single identity – the identity that the state will provide for you. Build on the back of existing divisive ideologies to further the demolition of the traditional family unit. Build a blob of people who have so many different identities that there is no identity; identity becomes a characteristic like hair colour – meaningless. Your identity will be your name. Then your number. You will comply because your thoughts are the thoughts of everyone, and everyone’s thoughts are the thoughts of the state. You will be the states identity. Nothing more.

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10navigator
10navigator
1 year ago

Sam Goldwyn’s quote is appropriate from 80 years ago. “Gentlemen, include me out!”

42
0
sskinner
sskinner
1 year ago

The Union already includes all within it’s shores. This ‘new’ rebranding is a from of exclusion, in the extreme.

66
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For a fist full of roubles
For a fist full of roubles
1 year ago

How appropriate having that wilting white rose above the words Team GB.
Team GB = Team Gay Boys?
= Team Gender Benders?
I am sure you can come up with more.

Last edited 1 year ago by For a fist full of roubles
38
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RW
RW
1 year ago
Reply to  For a fist full of roubles

Grandiloquent Bollocks

23
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huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
1 year ago

And another thing… by what right does the alphabet minority have the right to dictate the colours and content of our National flag? How many alphabet people are there in Great Britain? One per cent if that. Dictating to seventy million if we include all the immigrants.

Furthermore, by what right do the Olympic Association deem it within their remit to take a wrecking ball to the Union Jack? The flag and all it represents belongs to all the people of these nations and not some tiny pea-brained minority which clearly has some WEF Fifth Columnists within its ranks.

Absolutely appalling and treasonous behaviour.

93
0
RW
RW
1 year ago

But the agency […] says its Team GB redesign should appeal to a “new generation of sports fans”.

With this, the agency (SPECTRE?) means to communicate that it has absolutely no idea whether or not the new design will actually appeal to anyone but is absolutely certain that it will rub the majority of current sports fans absolutely the wrong way. Which is presumably the sole point of the exercise.

54
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Jon Garvey
Jon Garvey
1 year ago

“How can we unite all the disparate folk of Britain around their national team?”
“I know! Why not antagonise everyone who cares about the nation?

65
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NeilParkin
NeilParkin
1 year ago
Reply to  Jon Garvey

You mean the ‘Far Right’, decent family type people who pay their bills, and won’t take part in turning their nation into a rancid shithole.

49
0
Jon Garvey
Jon Garvey
1 year ago
Reply to  NeilParkin

Everybody’s Far Right now – my take.

12
0
Alan M
Alan M
1 year ago

“For fans of all backgrounds” They’ve just lost one here.

55
0
RW
RW
1 year ago

Also has to be said here: This is an absolutely shitty design which steals the general layout of the Union Jack, splashes a blue – pink – purple colour gradient over it and fills all available spaces with seemingly random patterns introducing a lot of optic noise which seems to exist for the sake of it. Kindergartenkids using finger paint would easily come up with something of much more artistic substance because they’d be trying to paint something and not just to obscure someone else’s creation.

47
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Spycatcher
Spycatcher
1 year ago

Outrageous!!

It reminds me of a section from the Hitchiker’s Guide, which described the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as “a bunch of mindless jerks who shall be first against the wall come the revolution”. A copy of the Guide from the future fell through a wormhole and described them as “a bunch of mindless jerks who were first against the wall…”

24
0
RW
RW
1 year ago
Reply to  Spycatcher

For some reason, this made be think of the depressed, telepathic elevators sulking in the basement.

12
-1
transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago

Our enemies are ramping up the pressure. Let them – they will be more clearly seen for what they are.

38
0
Mogwai
Mogwai
1 year ago

This chap nails the whole ‘DEI’ anti-white/racist scam, in my opinion;

”The best way to understand DEI is to separate the marketing pitch—which, I agree, is attractive—from the reality of DEI in practice. Here is how I see it:

1. Diversity: We agree that it is important for people of all backgrounds to be treated fairly. But “diversity” in the political sense means treating individuals as a representation of their group identity, sorting them into a hierarchy based on the “oppressor-oppressed” dynamic, and then discriminating for or against certain groups on that basis. In practice, it means putting identity above merit, rewarding and punishing individuals based on their ancestry and, increasingly, their political ideology. In academia, for example, “diversity statements” are used to measure conformity to left-wing racial theories.

2. Equity: We agree that we should maximize opportunity for all. But “equity” is a political ideology that is distinct from, and contradictory to, “equality.” In the highest sense, equality means that the state should treat individuals impartially, as in “equality under law,” while recognizing that individuals have different talents, desires, and motivations, which will inevitably lead to inequalities. In a sense, you cannot have equality without inequality—they are two sides of the same coin. “Equity,” on the other hand, treats all inequality as illegitimate and attempts to force group equalization, or “equality of outcomes,” through redistribution of wealth and property. This is a key tenet of critical race theory.

3. Inclusion: We agree that institutions should have constructive, creative environments. But in practice, “inclusion” is a code word for a distinct, left-wing orthodoxy and is used to suppress disfavored groups and opinions. At many universities, DEI administrators publish speech codes in the name of “inclusion” that restrict the range of discourse and speech on campus. Additionally, the “inclusion” principle is never extended to supposed “oppressor” groups, such as whites, men, and Christians—instead, it becomes a form of exclusion. We can see this in the real world with many institutions implementing “hate,” “bias,” and “safe space” policies, which, in practice, are used to silence dissent and, especially, conservative speech.

This is not speculation. I have substantiated all of these claims with dozens of investigative reports on DEI bureaucracies in universities, schools, and corporations. It is, in fact, much worse in the particular than in the general dynamics I am describing above.”

https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1774891216737538166

39
0
varmint
varmint
1 year ago
Reply to  Mogwai

Great comment

8
0
Marcus Aurelius knew
Marcus Aurelius knew
1 year ago

From where I am in France, I simply cannot imagine French men and women of any background standing by if their flag was debased in this way. Or Marianne being portrayed as anything other than a white woman. Hell would freeze over first. Too right, too. And it’s not because they’re racist. They aren’t. They actually care. Common courtesy exists here.

I ain’t patrotic. Too anarchic for that. But just because:

Last edited 1 year ago by Marcus Aurelius knew
24
-1
Marcus Aurelius knew
Marcus Aurelius knew
1 year ago
Reply to  Marcus Aurelius knew

.

image0022
9
0
AJPotts
AJPotts
1 year ago

The perceived level of personal threat needs to be increased among those who are intent on destroying our country.

24
0
varmint
varmint
1 year ago

People from all corners of the globe come here to live and work. They obviously come here for a better life and when you ask them “Where do you come from”? they will often get offended and adamantly state “I am British”. —–OK that is great you are all British. So why then are culture warriors fiddling about with the British flag talking about trying to be “inclusive” and other such woke language? ——-There is clearly no need for this absurd idea that our flag may offend people from other parts of the world, since they all say they are British when it suits them. —–STOP IT.

19
0
Covid-1984
Covid-1984
1 year ago

Another Bud-Lite fiasco. They never learn.

14
0
Geoff Cox
Geoff Cox
1 year ago
Reply to  Covid-1984

They know exactly what they are doing. The thick ones are our unconcerned British (for the moment) brethren.

Last edited 1 year ago by Geoff Cox
9
-1
RTSC
RTSC
1 year ago

No other country would allow its National Flag to be disrespected and abused in this way.

Why do we?

12
0
RW
RW
1 year ago
Reply to  RTSC

The government of the state of Berlin (SPD – Left- Greens) has banned display of the German flag by the police during the upcomfing Euros because of “state neutrality”. And the present chancer (Olaf Scholz¹) is on record for referring to marches where people were carrying placards with stuff like “Against nation, state and capitalism!” written on them a fine demonstration of comittment to democractic values.

¹ Most famous for getting out of an anti-corruption and tax fraud hearing by declaring that he really couldn’t remember anything about the events in question.

4
0

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