Traditional medicine systems in Asia and globally involve use of animal products including bear bile, tiger bone, and rhinoceros horn. The welfare cost is enormous and largely unnecessary.
The welfare cost of traditional medicine animal product use is enormous and largely avoidable. Many ingredients — rhino horn, pangolin scales, tiger bone — have no pharmacological basis and can be replaced by plant-based or synthetic alternatives without therapeutic loss. Bear bile contains a real active compound but synthetic alternatives exist and are used successfully in Western medicine. The suffering involved in extraction — particularly bile farming, which requires permanent catheterization and cage restriction — is severe and ongoing rather than a single slaughter event. Cultural change in consumer communities, combined with investment in evidence-based alternatives and sustainable plant medicines, offers the most promising path to reducing this welfare burden.