China - Results have value.

[Guest guest]

Alon:

 

Thanks for the information which began this post. Research and

validity of " Acupuncture " practice as a Profession is vital.

However, forcing it into the mode of " scientific " research in the

generally shallow meaning of that term, may not be as beneficial as

one would hope.

 

As you know, finding an effective " sham " control with TCM and

Acupuncture is very difficult. This is a sign and a portent.

 

It is evident that organisms respond to what we call Acupuncture

treatments. One has only to be in the " business " for a while to see

fantastic results. OMD's and " day trippers " (low level trained

therapists) alike help people with a miriad of therapeutic approaches

all of which are housed under the emblem of TCM. And should so be

embraced, I believe.

 

That what we do works for people (not to mention horses, dogs and

cats), is evidence of both effectiveness and validity. This is

honorable and worthy of respect. That we can predict an outcome with

some measure of success utilizing a variety of approaches is

significant(and scientifically confusing as well!).

 

4000 years of successful treatments and millions of satisfied

patients is worth something and very much worthy of protection.

 

Rather than fighting with one another over who has the best technique

or what procedure is the most scientifically valid, we should be

uniting ourselves to protect our patient's right to health and

healthcare choices.

 

Protecting and projecting the success of what we do is the best way

to accomplish this, I believe. Let our patients speak with us.

 

And let's not let so called " scientific " validitation become the sole

benchmark by which we are measured.

 

That's my opinion anyway,

 

Bill

[Guest guest]

i do not agree, its easy to do sham just have a none trained person do the

needling. What we need is to allow the real group to get real acupuncture that

is the way we do it in the office, changing points and methods as we see fit.

But if we cannot do significantly better than a none trained person then there

is no specific acupuncture affect and if we never show significant different

affect then we don't need a profession anyone can insert the needles. The

biological activity of sham acupuncture is an excuse, while it may lower the

difference between groups because it is an active treatment we should still see

a significant difference or what we are doing is a none specific treatment that

does not require years of study.

 

Alon