Volume 9, Number 4 | Winter 2014

Editorial
ISO and Traditional Chinese Medicine
The International Organization for Standardization, or ISO in short, is an institution that develops
international standards in all industrial sectors (mining and manufacturing, agriculture, pharmaceutical, etc.),
excluding the electricity, communication and electronic technology sectors. In 2009, a proposal was made toestablish a technical committee (TC) in ISO headquarters to discuss the international standardization ofTraditional Chinese Medicine as requested by China, and the committee was approved as TC249. The ISO/TC249
held its fifth meeting in Kyoto from May 26 to 29, 2014. I participated in the meeting as a member of Working
Group 5 (language, diagnosis and treatment methods, education methods).
First, China presented a list of the names of crude drugs and their origin, including the names of the animals
and plants or origin and their medicinal parts and code numbers. Surprisingly, the name of each crude drug waslisted in simplified Chinese characters, and in alphabetical order of their pinyin spelling. The almost
inconceivable idea of presenting a proposal for international standardization in Chinese notation invited strong
criticism from the other countries. In the end, the Chinese representative gave in, and newly proposed to spell
the names in Latin, the common language of the world and the basic language of academia, accompanied bytheir Chinese, Japanese and Korean names in alphabet. This proposal was not something Japan and South Korea
could agree to, because crude drugs of the same name in Japanese, Chinese and Korean are sometimes derived
from different plants. The Japanese and South Korean delegations insisted that the list be restricted for use in
China only, and that Japan and South Korea be excluded from the scope of the list. The discussion grewcomplicated, however, with Europe taking China’s side and placating Japan and South Korea to compromise,saying the difference was a minor issue. The Chinese representative sought Japan and South Korea’s cooperationin compiling a final list based on a list of crude drugs created by each country, but Japan and South Korea rejected
the proposal as impossible. Ultimately, it was agreed that China, Japan and South Korea would each prepare alist that describes crude drugs used in each country and present a proposal for combining the lists at the nextmeeting.
With the fifth meeting of ISO/TC249 now over, Japan must prepare its own list of crude drugs and theirdescriptions by next fiscal year’s meeting. This itself is a simple task, since the origins of crude drugs in Japanare contained in the Japanese Pharmacopoeia, the official pharmacopoeia in Japan, and it suffices to translate it
into English. However, I think we should take this occasion of international standardization to devise a systemof codes composed of numbers that have meaning and relevance to consumer needs, as it is meaningless to
simply assign each crude drug a random code. In China, an official classification of crude drugs already exists
with respect to efficacy, for easy usability by consumers. In contrast, the Japanese Pharmacopoeia simply lists thenames of crude drugs in order of the Japanese alphabet, and has no classification system. The use of crude drugs
in traditional medicine in Japan largely differs according to each school of physicians and pharmacist, and eachschool also has its own classification system, so no unified system has been created for all of Japan. As a matterof fact, the problem that the use of crude drugs has not been standardized in Japan has surfaced as a result of therecent response to the ISO, and calls for urgent measures.

Toshiaki Makino, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Pharmacognosy
Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences
Nagoya City University, Nagoya, JapanThe Journal of Kampo, Acupuncture and Integrative Medicine (KAIM)

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