Guest Comments by the Animals Asia Foundation

VIETNAM – The highest-ranking traditional-medicine practitioner here has warned consumers to stop taking bear-bile products or risk liver and kidney damage, even death.

Doctor Nguyen Xuan Huong joined an Animals Asia Foundation (AAF) campaign to end bear-bile farming after seeing the shocking effects of bile consumption on patients, including two government officials who died.

Dr Huong serves as chairman of the Traditional Medicine Association of Vietnam and has the title of People's Doctor, the nation’s highest medical position. Since 1985, he has treated 10 patients for bear-bile poisoning, including two he couldn't save. His last bear-bile patient, in 2006, was a 55-year-old jaundiced male with liver damage. Dr Huong successfully treated him.

For others, it was too late. In 1995, Quang Ninh Province's director of construction couldn't walk or talk, suffered severe liver cirrhosis and died at age 50. He had consumed bear bile mixed with wine for virility. Another fatal case, in 2002, involved a 75-year-old Hanoi doctor whose son kept bears. The sick man had taken 2cc of bear bile mixed with wine as a health tonic.

Dr Huong says that bear bile rarely belongs in authentic traditional medicine and usually sells as a quack “cure" for hangovers or impotence. “I've read 17,000 traditional medicine formulas, and only six mentioned the use of bear bile. Even then, its use is minimal and has little effect. People never should use bear bile, even for fertility or strengthening the body. Most people drinking bear bile will suffer liver damage, even from 2cc. If mixed with rice wine, the damage worsens.”

Part of Vietnam's National Assembly, Dr Huong has raised the issue there, but made little impression. “Even highly educated people don't understand the dangers. Bear bile serves a purpose in bears. It aids their digestion, like human bile helps us. For humans to consume bile from bears goes against nature."

AAF founder Jill Robinson hopes that Dr Huong's decision to go public will prompt health and customs authorities to examine the risks of bear bile. Korean tourists visit Vietnam's bear farms on organized bus tours, many leaving with vials of fresh bile as a hangover cure. In Chinatowns worldwide, bear bile sells on the black market.”

Although Vietnam outlaws bear-bile extraction, limited enforcement means the practice remains widespread. Drugged bears are jabbed with four-inch needles until gall bladders are found. Bile is extracted with catheters and medicinal pumps. Farms in Vietnam hold more than 4,000 caged bears.

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