The public has reacted angrily to the China Association of Traditional Chinese Medicine's claim that bile is harvested from live bears using a painless technique.

Fang Shuting, the association's director, said at a news conference on Thursday that when bile-extraction techniques were first introduced in China, surgically implanted metal tubes were used that caused the animals great pain, but in the 1980s a painless technique was developed that means it is now similar to "turning on a tap".

Despite the association's support, the company actually makes lucrative health promotion products with the bile rather than medicines, and the results of a number of surveys show that the majority of respondents object to the extraction of bear bile and oppose the pharmaceutical company's listing attempt.

Even if the method for extracting bear bile does not violate the related rules of this industry, the public's concern is justified.

There are two basic, though still controversial, rules for industries involving animals. First, the killing or harming of animals should either meet the basic needs of human life, such as food, or should increase the likelihood of saving human life, such as the animal experiments for health purposes. Second, humans should try to ease the pain involved in these process.

Instead of inviting people to visit the company, where they will be shown what the company wants them to see, the industry should dedicate their resources to developing synthetic alternatives for bear bile as soon as possible, rather than repeatedly trying to collect more money from the market just to raise more bears for their bile.

With the development of pharmaceutical technology, synthetic alternatives have already been adopted to replace some other animal products, so no doubt a substitute can be found. There are already some herbal medicines, which when used together, have a similar detoxifying function as bear bile.

However happy the bears appear in the photos displayed on the company's website, we still do not believe they are living a healthy life in the factory.

The animals cannot speak of their suffering so it is up to the public to speak for them.

(China Daily 02/20/2012 page8)