Chinanews, Guangzhou, August 30 – The 3rd World Integrative Medicine Congress will be kicked off on September 22 in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province.The subject of the congress will be the modernization of traditional herbal medicine, particularly the application of traditional Chinese medicine as a regular therapy, including acupuncture. More than 30 experts will be invited to give speeches on this topic. The congress will also serve as a platform for Chinese doctors to communicate with their Western counterparts.Nowadays, traditional Chinese medicine has been accepted by patients in many countries and regions, particularly acupuncture, which has been officially approved in most states of the US. However, some of the TCM herbs are poisonous, thus not many countries have included them on the recipes.“90% of people in developing countries have used traditional medicine, while the proportion in developed countries is 40%. TCM has the advantage of a systematic structure and complete theories, compared with other traditional medicines,” said Wu Weikang, vice director of the Chinese Association of Integration of Traditional Chinese and Western Medicines.In 2005, Chinese spent 124.995 billion yuan on Western drugs and 119.192 billion yuan on TCM drugs. Since generally TCM drugs are much cheaper than Western drugs, the Chinese must have taken many more TCM drugs than Western ones. Obviously, TCM has a bright future in China as well as in the world.