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Re: Snake Oil



On Mon, 10 Jan 2000, Zach Wolff wrote:

I take some objection to the mention of acupuncture
with a list of snake oil remedies. I believe the NIH,
along with other prestigious traditional medicine
authorities, has commented that acupuncture does have
therapeutic value.

You are correct about NIH, but sadly that doesn't necessarily mean it has
therapeutic value. Bob Park has written about this several times in his
What's New newsletter (http://www.aps.org, look for What's New link). A
search there on accupuncture turned up 5 hits, but the most relevant one
is the following:

What's New by Robert L. Park, Friday, 7 November 1997

[ . . . ]

4. PRICK: NIH PANEL ENDORSES ACUPUNCTURE THERAPY.

Following a three-day invited conference in which not one paper
questioning the efficacy of acupuncture was presented, a consensus
panel concluded that: 1) research on acupuncture is of poor quality;
2) no one knows how acupuncture works; and 3) acupuncture is an
effective treatment for certain kinds of pain and nausea. As the
report explains: "...the definition and characterization of the
acupuncture points remains controversial. Even more elusive is
the scientific basis of some of the key Eastern medical concepts
such as the circulation of Qi, the meridian system, and the
five-phases theory, which are difficult to reconcile with
contemporary biomedical information but continue to play an
important role in the evaluation of patients and the formulation
of treatment in acupuncture." Translation: "Sham" acupuncture--
sticking needles in the "wrong" places--works about as well as
sticking them in the "right" places. When panelists criticized
the Western medical practice of relying on randomized, controlled
clinical trials, the audience burst into applause.
Science was on holiday.


--
Andy Dougherty doughera@lafayette.edu
Dept. of Physics
Lafayette College, Easton PA 18042