My Take | Can synthetic bile finally free the moon bears?

One of the most horrific abuses of animals in China and Vietnam has been the trapping of moon bears and the extraction of their bile on an industrial scale.

Such bear farms, which are poorly regulated and usually unsanitary, keep the bears in small cages under the most terrible conditions. But at least China, as a state-directed policy, has been phasing out those farms, although still too slowly.

One reason is that there are still industrial-scale buyers of bear bile. Mainland manufacturer Kaibao Pharmaceuticals buys an estimated 18 tonnes of powdered bile each year, roughly equivalent to half of the total wholesale supply.

The mind boggles: how many bears have to suffer the painful daily bile extraction to meet that quota?

Fortunately, the company has just announced that its lab has successfully synthesised a full substitute for use in traditional Chinese medicine under a state-subsidised scheme worth US$1.8 million.

Ursodeoxycholic acid, the active ingredient in bear bile, has long been artificially produced. It is, for example, used to treat a type of cirrhosis of the liver.