126 | China: Moon Bears and the Bear Bile Industry bear bile wine But after visiting your sanctuary, I am shocked and feel ashamed of having hurt these animals Starting from today, I will never sell bear products again This support gives us hope that, like the Vietnamese government, the Chinese government will agree to outlaw the trade in bear bile For the bears suffering and dying on the farms right now, freedom cannot come soon enough Day after day, their bile is drained through crude metal catheters implanted into their gall bladders, or via permanently open, infected holes in their abdomens This latter method—the only method permitted in China—is known as the freedripping technique, which the authorities claim is hygienic and humane However, veterinarians have found that bile extraction significantly increases the risk of disease in the bears and must, by the nature of the wound, cause pain Anyone with a basic understanding of physiology knows that a permanent hole in the abdomen is a perfect vector for bacterial infection Some farmers have devised a fake free-drip technique whereby a Perspex catheter is hidden within the hole to prevent it from healing This allows the farmers to deceive government inspectors by maintaining that the hole is naturally and permanently open, allowing bile to drip freely out as the regulations dictate Contaminated Bile Animals Asia has urged Chinese authorities to look into the possible harmful side effects of contaminated bear bile This organization has a growing dossier of evidence that the bears tapped for their bile are developing liver cancers at an alarming rate Moon bears held in captivity rarely contract liver tumors unless they are very old, but almost half of the rescued bears that have died were euthanized because of liver cancer The bile is contaminated with pus, blood and even feces A healthy bear’s bile is as fluid as water and bright yellowyorange to green in color Veterinary surgeons have described bile leaking from the diseased gall bladders of the rescued bears as black sludge They also consider it highly likely that cancer cells are present in the bile extracted from bears with liver tumors The prized ingredient in bear bile, ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA), is used by TCM practitioners for a myriad of complaints, everything from hangovers to hemorrhoids However, UDCA can be synthesized easily under laboratory conditions—the UDCA produced is pure, clean and reliable Dr Wang Sheng Xian, a Chengdu pathologist who analyzes the livers of bears that have died from liver cancer, has said: “The more I learn about the extraction of bile from bears, the more I would never recommend this kind of drug to my family and friends This drug could be harmful to people.” There are many effective and affordable synthetic alternatives as well as more than 50 herbal options “Although I respect TCM, what I have seen from the samples from caged bears makes me doubt that products like this work I personally think we had better use alternative drugs and never extract bile from bears,” Dr Wang said A Vietnamese pathologist has also expressed grave concerns for the health of both humans and bears after conducting clinical examinations of the damaged gall bladders of three moon bears rescued