China: medical procedures are now dictated by fortune tellers

by Michael Woodhead 
In the west, patients often do their ‘homework’ by consulting medical books and websites before seeing a doctor – but in China patients are doing their homework with fortune tellers. A new report shows that patients are relying on fortune tellers to decide what date they will have an operation, when to have a caesarean section and even to guide cosmetic surgery for a more ‘fortunate’ face.
At a Liaoning Hospital, head of nursing Ren Yumei says about 80% of women choose to have a caesarean section birth, and many of them are done so they can select the ‘auspicious’ date and time selected for their child’s birth from fortune tellers consulting the books of the “Great Immortals’.
“Many women and their families demand not just the day but the hour of birth according to horoscopes, they won’t accept any deviation,” she says.
In Anshan, head surgeon Wang Yongshen says the same thing is now happening with patients requiring elective surgery. Patients demand a specific time for the operation – sometimes even in the early hours of the morning.
“Even when they know that surgery in the middle of the night is likely to be less safe and effective they opt for it because of the influence of the fortune tellers,” he says. And when hospitals refuse these unscientific requests, patients turn to smaller private clinics that are happy to cash in on the new fad for ‘auspiciously timed medical procedures’, even though their medical standards are often suspect.
Obstetric nurse Ren Yumei says she is concerned to see mothers and families putting their baby’s health at risk by forcing an early delivery just to have a ‘lucky’ birth timing. She says the health risks of premature birth are well known, including respiratory and developmental problems as well as blood and cardiovascular risks.
A surgeon at a cosmetic clinic in Shenyang says he even sees patients who wish to change their appearance based on advice from fortune tellers. He had one young man who insisted on having surgery to give him a bigger chin because this would make him appear more bold and daring, in accordance with his horoscope, according to an adviser. He went ahead with the operation despite medical advice that it would restrict his jaw movement.
Professor Zhang Bao of the Tianjin Institute for Social Sciences says the new trend is anti-scientific and a remnant of ‘old thinking’ superstitious ignorance. He said the two schools of thought could not co-exist and there would be a collision between the two.
He said many ‘fortune tellers’ were in business for personal gain and they made extravagant claims that had no regard for the welfare of the patient. He said such practices should be strictly supervised and exposed for what they are. If they continued to provide harmful advice fortune tellers should be prosecuted and punished, he said.
The original report is published by Xinhua.

Vaccine for H7N9 | No smoking in medical centres | Cosmetic surgery boom among young Chinese

Vaccine developed for H7N9
Shanghai researchers say they have developed a "gene vaccine" for the H7N9 avian flu virus for humans that has succeeded in primary animal tests, according to Shanghai Daily. The claim was made by officials at an infection disease research body under the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center

Now influenza H6 is a threat to humans
Yet another kind of avian influenza virus has been found to pose a threat to human health in China - this time it is H6. Researchers from Lanzhou tested samples from live poultry markets in southern China from 2008–2011 and found that among the 257 H6 strains tested, 87 viruses couldbind to human receptors. They found that there were 30 different H6 genotypes, showing that these viruses are actively circulating and reassorting in nature. "Our study demonstrates that the H6 avian influenza viruses pose a clear threat to human health and emphasizes the need for the continued surveillance and evaluation of the H6 influenza viruses circulating in nature," they concluded in the Journal of Virology.

Subway station radiation not a health threat
Operators of subway stations in cities such as Beijing and Chengdu say the radiation from security scanners poses no threat to human health. The doses from a typical security scan are equal to around 0.007 mSv per year if a person is scanned daily. This is lower than the safety standard of 1 mSv per person a year. Most X-rays are contained within the machines by protective curtains that block X-rays from escaping," and environmental expert told the Beijing Daily.

No smoking rule for medical centres
Doctors have been advised to deliver stronger anti-smoking messages to their patients ,according to ECNS. According to the report, doctors have been told by the National Health and Family Planning Commission to inquire and record the smoking history of patients during their initial diagnosis to help smokers quit. The NHFPC also says that there should be no smoking in medical establishment and medical workers are also asked not to put ashtrays in their offices. The NHFPC also recommends that smoking clinics be set up.


Cosmetic surgery rates highest in young people
Cosmetic surgery and other cosmetic procedures such as ear piercing have become very popular with young people during the holiday period, according to Xinhua. Many stalls in a Shenyang market offered ear, lip, tongue, nose and belly button piercing over the New Year holiday. The operators claimed to be trained nurses but failed to produce any medical license.  A cosmetic surgeon said that there had been a rise in young people undergoing minor surgeries too, with children as young as eight or nine getting double-eyelid surgery to give them the appearance of larger or "Western" eyes.

China medical news for Sunday 2 February

Cosmetic procedures a high risk for hepatitis C
Chinese people are more likely to contract hepatitis C from a cosmetic and beauty treatments than from medical procedures or blood transfusion, a study from Jilin shows.
Researchers found that hepatitis C rates had increased rapidly in Yanbian, Jilin, more than doubling from  2007 to 2011. Unexpectedly, they found that cosmetic treatments conferred the higest risk - almost five fold higher than control groups. Having someone esle in the family with HCV was also a high risk for infection, presumably through sexual transmission between spouses, the researchers said. Writing in PLOS One, the researchers for the Capital Medical University, Beijing, said cosmetic treatments had become popular in recent years and there was a risk of viral infection with procedures that broke the skin such as shaving and ear piercing.

Atherosclerosis defined in stroke
Intracranial atherosclerosis (ICAS) is the most common vascular lesion in patients with cerebrovascular disease in China, a study  has shown. Researchers at the Tiantan Hospital in Beijing assessed 2864 consecutive patients who experienced an acute cerebral ischemia and found the prevalence of ICAS was 47%. Patients with ICAS had more severe stroke at admission and stayed longer in hospitals compared with those without intracranial stenosis. According to the study in Stroke, after 12 months, recurrent stroke occurred in 3.3% of patients with no stenosis, in 3.8% for those with 50% to 69% stenosis, in 5.2% for those with 70% to 99% stenosis, and in 7.3% for those with total occlusion.

STI risk high for men who visit prostitutes
Men who have unprotected sex with prostitutes are at high risk of HIV and syphilis, Guangxi research has shown. A study of more than 100 men who visited prostitutes found a high rate of unprotected sex (84%). The overall prevalence of HIV, hepatitis C and syphilis was 1.9%, 1.0% and 18.4%, respectively, according to the study published in Sexually Transmitted Infections.

Parasite problems on the Tibetan plateau
Worm parasites are an endemic problem for Tibetans, especially nomadic herders, a study has found.
Echinococcosis affects more than 380,000 people on the Tibet-Qinghai plateua, is spread by dogs and cattle, and is often picked up from drinking groundwater, according to a study by Chinese researchers. Those most at risk include the old and female in particular. Writing in Infectious Diseases of Poverty, the researchers said control of the parasites should focus on deworming both owned and stray dogs and health education activities n Tibetan language.

Today's China medical news headlines

More than half a billion Chinese have health cards. At the end of 2013, 540 million Chinese people, or roughly 40% of the population, had social security cards, which are mainly used to pay for medical expenses.It is hoped to expand numbers to 800 million cards by 2015, according to the Shanghai Daily.

Doctors in Beijing will be allowed to work in private hospitals as well as public ones under new regulations being drawn up by the National Health and Family Planning Commission.
At present doctors are restricted to working in only three local hospitals, according to China Daily. The city's health bureau says lifting the restrictions is aimed at encouraging doctors from top public hospitals to work in private medical institutions, attracting more patients to these institutions and thus alleviating the workload on large hospitals.

China may see human-to-human transmission of the H7N9 bird flu virus on a limited scale the WHO representative to the country has said. But there is no evidence that the virus will become sustained or widespread among humans, Bernhard Schwartlander said, according to the Beijing Daily.

"Since October, only one cluster was detected where human-to-human transmission might have occurred. We continue to expect only sporadic human cases," Mr Schwartlander said.


A Shanghai hospital has donated 'free' plastic surgery to a poor 16-year-old girl who survived the devastating Wenchuan earthquake of 2008. According to Shanghai Daily, the Shanghai Huamei Plastic Surgery Hospital gave Li Wenqian a free operation to separate her ring finger and little finger on her right hand, which had grown together after injuries she received when she was buried under debris for nearly 10 hours after the earthquake.

China is setting up a national health data network advisory group to make better use of population and public health information, CRI reports. A team of 28 experts from fields including medicine, demography, engineering, mathematics and law will provide suggestions for strategy, policy and planning based on population and public health data, according to the National Health and Family Planning Commission.



The New England Journal of Medicine is to expand its presence in China through the Wolters Kluwer publishing group and Ovid, according to a press release.

Second rate Korean cosmetic surgeons use China as a training ground

How dare the so-called “gold medal doctors” from South Korea do plastic surgery without China’s medical certification? Recently, we found some Korean plastic surgeons working in Shenyang City. Korean doctors were organized by beauty salons to make plastic surgeries in China, some of them even have little clinical experience Some beauty salons work as intermediary to organize Korean doctors to practice as plastic surgeons in China.

Doctors warn about rise in cosmetic surgery among Chinese girls

Girls under 18 are not psychologically mature enough for cosmetic surgery

by Michael Woodhead

More and more Chinese minors who are "ruled by beauty" are seeking cosmetic surgery for  non-medical reasons and doctors are warning about the trend.
Doctors say that cosmetic surgery requires psychological maturity and minors should be wary of cosmetic surgery as they may become end up physically and mentally "disfigured".
In one example this month, a middle aged couple in Shenyang, Liaoning, a middle-aged couple turned up at the Liaoning Provincial People's Hospital, to ask doctors in the Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery department why thy had performed cosmetic surgery on their 17-year old daughter without their permission
Medical staff were confused - and when they checked the patient's medical records they found the girl's ID card copy showed her as 22-year-old - and therefore an adult.
However, a hospital review found the girl was actually a high school student, who get that her face was chubby and therefore got the idea of having cosmetic surgery. For this reason, she deliberately made herself a fake ID on which she changed her age, and ultimately was successful in obtaining cosmetic of surgery.
In response to this, the Liaoning Provincial People's Hospital, director of the Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Dr  Long Yuanji said there were no circumstances in which minors could be allowed to have non-medical cosmetic plastic surgery, and therefore  the hospital requires that any young people who seek surgery must be accompanied by parents and signed agree to surgery.
Chinese media reporters have  found that the  demand for cosmetic surgery gradually increased towards the end of the year the, most of it for girls. There were three main groups of High School, Middle School, and Art School candidates who sought surgery as preparation for college entrance admission. The main categories of surgery favoured by minors were  double-fold eyelids, nose jobs,  bone lengthening and liposuction f.
Dr Long said cosmetic surgery was increasingly sought by minors but it requires not only physical maturity, but also there needs to be psychologically maturity as patients need to be fully prepared to face a series of unknown surgical risks. Many minors are psychology not fully mature but blindly follow the trend. However, their ability to tolerate it is limited and if surgery 'fails',  it inflicts a huge  psychological blow.
Often after cosmetic surgery there is a gap between expectation and results, he says. He cites rhinoplasty surgery as an example, as it is, sometimes difficult to achieve satisfactory results with the nose. Dr Long urges parents and minors not to let plastic surgery lead them into being disfigured.
Read more: China Medical Tribune