On that note....

Buyer Beware, Chinese Herbal Medicine - the animal slaughter continues

Traditional Chinese Herbal Medicine has been practiced for thousands of years and still today, many species of animals are being tortured and killed for their superstitious potions and voodoo remedies.

I would like you to consider the following if you purchase Chinese Herbal Products.
I visited one local Santa Monica Chinese Herbal Store and found out what they considered herbal. In their herbal tonics I found animal sexual organs, gecko lizards, deer antlers, placenta, tortoise shell, fish, caterpillar fungus and pearls. Quoting from their Herbal Tonics catalog it says "this formula contains 41 herbs, three of which are male animal sexual organs." Later on it states "supertonic herbs such as deer antler" and calls "pearl, a very special herbal substance." I do not consider animal sexual organs, deer antler and pearls to be herbs! Other stores I visited sold musk extracted from deer testicles and snake cream from cobras that were skinned alive. I also found bear gall bladders and bile and you should be aware that many American and Canadian bear have been found dead in the forest with their gall bladders cut out. The current price I was quoted recently from a forest ranger was $5,000.00.

Animals are being butchered all over the world for Herbal Medicine. Tigers and the Rhinoceros are now extinct in the wild.

The Chinese claim that by eating the penis of Tigers men can regain their sexual stamina and prowess. It is one of the most sought after Chinese herbal tonics. People always hope for the shortcuts to health. Men all over the world would rather believe eating a tigers penis will give them an erection instead of getting healthy and being in love. The tiger's bones are believed to help arthritis, the tiger's nose for epilepsy and seizures and even the tiger's whiskers for toothache. Because of this ongoing poaching of endangered species, tigers are almost extinct. While Chinese Herbal shops swear they don't sell tiger parts, they do. In a trip to China town in San Francisco recently 45 herbal shops were visited. Of the 45, over half of them had illegal tiger parts. One shop had entire tiger skeletons and skin.

Because tiger parts are getting harder to acquire, the Chinese herbalists have turned to rhinoceros horns hoping that these horns might have the same supposed sexual stimulating powers as the tiger penis. Because of this, rhinoceros have been slaughtered by the thousands all over Africa, some even shot by helicopter gun shipsstrafing the herds and then trucks coming by afterwards sawing off the horn and then leaving the entire rhino dying on the ground. In efforts to stop the slaughter many African countries have dehorned the rhinos, to save their lives, but the poachers are still killing them just to dig the stump of the horn out.

The Bottom Line. I feel we should have an all out boycott of Chinese herbs and these so-called herbal shops until they go 100% animal and insect free. Thousands of years ago, the people who lived on this planet had to do many things to survive. The Chinese system of Medicine is supposedly over 6,000 years old. The American Indians used herbs for healing too but still the vast majority of their materia medica was animal organs also. If we were to all of a sudden have no food, clothing, shelter and herbs, we would all quickly go back to these ways of living to survive. But we do have great food, and great herbs, and plenty of shelter, head and hot water, so it is time to abandon these ancient survival systems of medicine for new healthier ways that don't involved the killing, torture and extinction of our animal friends.
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Dr. Schulze

Stephania Spp??

Not sure about that