Research in traditional medicine over the past century was primarily based on the modern pharmaceutical model - isolation and structure elucidation of active chemicals, followed by development into modern single-chemical drugs.  Although I grew up in a TCM environment, my professional training followed this pharmaceutical paradigm.  My undergraduate training was in Pharmacy at the National Taiwan University and graduate training in Pharmacognosy (science of natural medicine) at the University of Michigan.  At Michigan, my M.S. and Ph.D. research was on the cultivation of a Pacific Northwestern hallucinogenic mushroom, Psilocybe baeocystis, and then isolating active compounds from it.  Out of this research, I have published four papers, one on its nutritional requirements for the production of the hallucinogen psilocybin, while the others on the isolation and structure elucidation of the monomethyl and demethyl analogs of psilocybin (which I named baeocystin and norbaeocystin, respectively).   Baeocystin has since been found in other hallucinogenic mushrooms in America and Europe and has been synthesized by scientists at the University of Berne, Switzerland. 

Thus, my training and experience have largely been in conventional sciences (botany, chemistry, mycology, microbiology, etc.) focusing on active phytochemicals.  However, in 1999 or 2000, after working more and more with traditional medicines, especially TCM, I finally realized that this approach did not work as long as our intention was to look at them only in terms of specific active chemicals or use them as raw materials for isolating such chemicals that often have nothing to do with what traditional medicines are all about.  Furthermore, it often equates a complex herbal medicine to a modern single-chemical drug.  Thus, one of the major reasons why for decades we have failed to obtain consistent, reproducible results in herb research is because most researchers did not clearly define the test materials (herbs, extracts, or  semi-purified chemicals) they used in their studies or reporting. 

Trying to address this issue, I first proposed a set of criteria to help improve the quality of herb research in 1999, with the hope that the more conscientious researchers might notice and would characterize their herbal materials better before starting their research.  Finally, in 2004, NCCAM started to require all investigators conducting NIH-funded botanical research to have their test materials characterized to a level that meet peer reviewers’ criteria.  But in the meantime, research based on undefined or poorly defined herbal materials has continued.  It will be some time before the scientific community learns the importance of using properly characterized test materials in order to obtain consistent and reproducible results.  Hence, the poor quality of publications resulting from the use of undefined, poorly defined, or downright confused, botanical materials will continue. 

Due to above reasons, much of the published data on scientific studies of traditional medicines so far is not credible, and should be treated as tentative.  This includes results of herb research quoted in my own publications before 2000.  After realizing this, I no longer use data from publications that are based on ambiguous or undefined test materials.  I urge my colleagues and all reporters of scientific findings to do the same.  Do not trust any journal, no matter how prestigious.  Dig deeper to find out what exactly was the botanical materials were.

- Dr. Albert Leung