Nature 480, S90–S92 (2011)

A quote attributed to Yi Rao in this Outlook article incorrectly implied that he criticized the use of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) techniques. Instead, Rao’s intention was to question attitudes that apply different standards to TCM and modern medicine. The text ‘This process is not helped by the insistence of many TCM researchers on using traditional methodologies — such as water decoction, immersion, reflux extraction and distillation — to process herbs. “It is totally ridiculous,” says Rao’ should instead read ‘This process is not helped by the insistence of many TCM researchers on using different measures of efficacy for TCM compared with modern medicines. “You can use different drugs or approaches, but all drugs and treatment strategies have to pass the same standards to show that they are effective”, says Rao’. This text has been replaced in the PDF and HTML versions online.