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Free drip refers to cutting a hole in the gallbladder and adhering it to the skin of the abdomen, thus creating a fistula through which the bile is extracted.
"The process of extracting bear bile was as easy, natural and painless as turning on a tap. It only takes about 10 seconds. During that short period, the black bear feels no pain and can play and eat as usual," Fang said.
According to the AAF, its bear rescue center in Chengdu in southwest China's Sichuan Province has rescued 277 bears from farms that were shut down by local forestry authorities. Of the 121 bears that have died at the center, 35 percent died of liver cancer.
The center's senior veterinary surgeon Monica Bando said the free drip method of bear bile extraction is no safer or less painful than the implanted catheter method.
"There is no evidence to support the claim that the free drip method is humane," said Bando. "Bears don't express pain in the same way as humans, so we can't say just because the bears are still eating it means they are not in pain."
Among the 181 bears the center rescued from free drip farms over the past 11 years, 99 percent had cholecystitis, inflammation of the gall bladder, and 66 percent had gall bladder polyps, according to Bando.
These bears were also found suffering from multiple infections or complications in their kidneys, eyes and other organs, as well as mental and behavioral problems.
"About 11 percent of the bile samples of bears rescued from free drip farms were contaminated with pus, which is a cause for concern over the safety of bear bile products for humans," Bando said.
According to Guizhentang Pharmaceuticals, bear bile is used in 123 TCMs, including medicinal powders, capsules and other products, and 183 pharmaceutical companies in the country use bear bile powder in medicines.
When meeting the press on February 16, Fang said that there are no known synthetic replacements for bear bile.
In response, Zhao Xiaogang, an expert with Beijing Tongrentang Group, a prestigious TCM retailer, said, "Though natural bear bile may not be totally replaced by other ingredients, many herbs have been proven to have similar medical values."
Jiang Qi, former Vice President of Shenyang Pharmaceutical University in northeast China's Liaoning Province, also revealed that years of research has shown that Chinese companies can produce drug substitutes that have the same function as bear bile.
According to Jiang, at least 50 herbal and synthetic substitutes have been proved to have the same medical effect and are much cheaper than bear bile.
In fact, Shenyang Pharmaceutical University began to study artificial bear bile as early as 1983, with trials covering acute tonsillitis, high blood pressure, hemorrhoids as well as swollen eyes.
After more than 20 years of research and hundreds of clinical trials in four hospitals in Shanghai and Shenyang, Liaoning Province, the university received a patent in 2006 for the composition and method of making artificial bear bile. "After official approval, artificial bear bile can be mass produced," Jiang said.
However, the conclusions have not been accepted by the State Food and Drug Administration. In 2002 and 2004, the administration's Drug Evaluation Center replied that "artificial bear bile has clear differences with natural bear bile and cannot be used as a substitute."
At a Beijing Loving Animals Foundation seminar on February 19, experts called on the government to approve the use of bear bile substitutes as soon as possible, in a bid to stop bile extraction from live bears by TCM companies.
"China's success in developing artificial musk, a substance obtained from the gland of a male musk deer, could be copied to save bears from the torture of bile extraction," said Gao Yimin, a professor at Capital Medical University in Beijing.
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