(Merged Thread) Facts and fictions in acupuncture [Archive]

yrreg

15th February 2006, 06:16 PM

We want to find the facts and locate the fictions in acupuncture.

Facts are independent of man's mind, fictions are in the mind of man and enacted outside.

Why bother to find the facts and the fictions in acupuncture? Perhaps in the process we will realize for a categorical certainty that it is all fictions, or realize that it is both facts and fictions, as in almost everything in man's endeavors.

If we should find out that acupuncture is all fictions, then that is a very good step forward in the advancement of medical knowledge, saving time and trouble and labor to thousands who do take recourse in acupuncture, and give testimonies of their deliverance from bodily pain and discomfort and dysfunction, otherwise not susceptible to successful treatment and medication through conventional scientific medicine.

If on the other hand we should find out at least that there are facts beneficial at that, then we will absolutely also contribute to the advancement of medical knowledge for the relief of suffering -- which is the eternal concern of Buddhists: for Buddhists here, that is one great solution to your quest, so no need to spend time and patience and torture in meditation.

It is a win win exercise, the search for the facts and the fictions in acupuncture.

----------------

I have already a very rough approach to this study.

1. Get some current news reports of people who are so relieved to have their medical complaints finally answered successfully with acupuncture.

2. Divide their treatment history into three phases:

---- a. condition prior to acupuncture,
---- b. event of acupuncture treatment,
---- c. condition post acupuncture.
3. Seek the factors whatever they be that might be in any way the intervening component in the treatment event that changes the condition prior to acupuncture to the beneficent condition post.
In step 3 we want to imagine everything imaginable of however negligible connection to the complaint and however unimaginable causality with the healing of the patient.

What are all these possible components, conditions, circumstances, incidental details during the treatment period, that might have an efficacious link in any manner and degree with the successful outcome of the treatment?

Things like for example the weather, or even the body odor of the acupuncturist. Yes, laugh, but we are not going to forgo any of the categories of being in the investigation.

So, first task is to gather some successful accounts of acupuncture treatment done specially by certified practicing MD's who also go into acupuncture as a complementary skill.

Please stay posted, and remember we will change the approach as we proceed when modifications of perspectives and strategies are dictated for the sake of making the exercise more promising and easier and quicker, and of course more easy to apprehend on the part of non-partisan observers.

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Butai.
http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/5260/putai26eo.gif

TV's Frank

15th February 2006, 09:18 PM

Let's not do this.

RichardR

15th February 2006, 11:03 PM

I have already a very rough approach to this study.
1. Get some current news reports of people who are so relieved to have their medical complaints finally answered successfully with acupuncture.Right there you have a badly designed experiment before you start. A self-selected group of "successful" patients, after the fact, with no control group.

Better to look at some studies already done. Such as this one (http://skeptico.blogs.com/skeptico/2005/05/still_no_eviden.html). Or this one (http://skeptico.blogs.com/skeptico/2005/05/acupuncture_it_.html).

Asolepius

16th February 2006, 06:13 AM

Yrreg, do you have any idea of what an experiment is? It's a prospective, controlled test, not a retrospective uncontrolled one. First, we need to know if acupuncture works, before we try to work out why. The jury is pretty much still out on the former.

brodski

16th February 2006, 06:29 AM

Right there you have a badly designed experiment before you start. A self-selected group of "successful" patients, after the fact, with no control group.

Better to look at some studies already done. Such as this one (http://skeptico.blogs.com/skeptico/2005/05/still_no_eviden.html). Or this one (http://skeptico.blogs.com/skeptico/2005/05/acupuncture_it_.html).
You may as well not bother, I (and many other posters) have already tried to get through to yrreg how poor his experimental design is. Apparently my arguments where invalid because I was "too emotional" and my post was not in the correct format.
see here ( http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=51856 )
Yrreg is immune to any evidence which does not meet his exacting standards, one of which seems to be that it confirms what he already believes.

yrreg

16th February 2006, 11:38 PM

I said at the start that I would look up news accounts of successful acupuncture treatments. But no, no longer will I continue to pour over the news accounts of successful acupuncture treatments, because they are too many to cover all of them, and almost everyday brings new ones, and I am one guy in a hurry.

So we will instead adopt this wholesale approach, namely, the question:

Is one at least one successful acupuncture treatment fact, or all are fictions?

Why just ask for only one successful acupuncture treatment? Because the adversaries of acupuncture insist with all certainty that in all these millennia of acupuncture practice, there has not been accomplished on genuine truly medically authentic successful cure.

Consider these categorical universal pronouncements from the adversaries of acupuncture:

Research during the past 20 years has not demonstrated that acupuncture is effective against any disease. -- NCAHF
http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/acu.html

Research during the past twenty years has failed to demonstrate that acupuncture is effective against any disease. -- NCAHF
http://www.ncahf.org/pp/acu.html

Science doesn't have to explain the effects of acupuncture, because so far the acupuncturists cannot show an effect. -- Brodski
http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=1448143&postcount=57

There is zero evidence that acupuncture successful in treating any medical conditions. All evidence supporting acupuncture is for symptoms, more specifically only subjective symptoms. There is zero evidence for acupuncture being successful with objective symptoms. -- 3logic
http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=1448295&postcount=61

Well, what do you guys say here, who are adamant with complete and absolute certainty that acupuncture has not produced in all the millennia of its practice one successful medical cure, that can hurtle all the criteria of a successful treatment as demanded by today's conventional scientific medicine?

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Bude
http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/5260/putai26eo.gif

Ryokan

17th February 2006, 05:07 AM

Since you seem to be of the opinion that we all possess only the fiction of acupuncture, Yrreg, why don't you provide us with the facts?

What is acupunture? What does it do? Why does it work?

I have a feeling that when you provide us with answers to these questions, we'll have to rewrite all the biology books.

Mojo

17th February 2006, 06:08 AM

I said at the start that I would look up news accounts of successful acupuncture treatments. But no, no longer will I continue to pour over the news accounts of successful acupuncture treatments, because they are too many to cover all of them, and almost everyday brings new ones, and I am one guy in a hurry. The problem with anecdotal accounts of "successful treatments" is that there is no way of knowing whether the treatment or some other factor was responsible for the "success". The mere fact that someone gets better after a treatment does not mean that the treatment caused the recovery. An anecdotal report of someone recovering after receiving treatment tells us nothing about whether the treatment is effective. We need to know how many other people have been treated and what proportion of them got better; we also need to know what proportion of people suffering from the same condition get better without receiving the treatment. To do this you need to conduct properly controlled trials.

So we will instead adopt this wholesale approach, namely, the question:

Is one at least one successful acupuncture treatment fact, or all are fictions?

Why just ask for only one successful acupuncture treatment? Because the adversaries of acupuncture insist with all certainty that in all these millennia of acupuncture practice, there has not been accomplished on genuine truly medically authentic successful cure. It is impossible to establish that a treatment like acupuncture works from an individual case. To establish whether or not a treatment has been successful, you need to eliminate other causes for recovery. You need to be prepared to put in the work, and carry out properly controlled trials (blinded to eliminate the placebo effect). This is the only approach that will eliminate the possibility of other causes for recovery. Unfortunately, being "one guy in a hurry" does not suit you to this sort of methodical approach.

brodski

17th February 2006, 06:15 AM

Unfortunately, being "one guy in a hurry" does not suit you to this sort of methodical approach.

Fortunately for our "guy in a hurry", acupuncture has already been tested against placebo, several times, so he doesn't have to waste his precious time looking for anecdotal evidence to shore up his preconceived notions of efficacy. unfortunately for our "guy in a hurry" the results indicate that acupuncture is no more effective than any other placebo response arising from a "complex intervention".
That and the fact that these studies probably don't meet Yrregs exacting grammatical, formating and geographical requirements.

Yuri Nalyssus

17th February 2006, 09:40 AM

...the results indicate that acupuncture is no more effective than any other placebo response...
I think you'll find that constitutes an emotional response.

I am still waiting for an answer to my question to Yreg - What is it about emotional responses that worry him, what does he feel is wrong with robust debate?

People on this list presumably feel strongly about alternative medicine, why cannot Y.reg debate on this level. If confrontation makes Y.reg so unhappy all he needs to do is go to a more pro-acupuncture list. If Y.reg really cares about the points on debate he should start answering some questions. I would rather listen to mild sarcasm and the occasional passionate outburst than to veiled insults.

Yuri

Ryokan

17th February 2006, 09:54 AM

If Y.reg really cares about the points on debate he should start answering some questions.

I've debated Yrreg ever since he first came to the JREF forums, mostly in the Religion & Philosophy subforum on Buddhism.

For some reason, he also dragged me into this subforum to an acupuncture thread (See here (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=1445517#post1445517) and and here (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=1445478#post1445478)).

I just wanted to say that there's one thing you have to get used to right away, Yrreg never answers questions and he never provides sources for his claims.

ETA : The funny thing is, in his critique on Buddhism, he demands scientific evidence that it works, but with acupuncture anecdotal evidence and confirmation biased research is enough.

strathmeyer

17th February 2006, 10:46 AM

SirPhilip

17th February 2006, 12:40 PM

We want to find the facts and locate the fictions in acupuncture.
Claim: Jane the consumer has meridians/points and stimulating/unblocking these
can result in "good Ch'i/Qi flow" and improve her softball game.

Fact: This requires volume, mass, and bioactivity, and would be observable
by western doctors; even assuming that wasn't the case, it would have been
discovered and would be part of medical literature today.

Claim: Some people can cultivate Ch'i/Qi/Serpent Power/Kundalini and
demonstrate it.

Fact: Certain practitioners of esoteric schools develop a degree of
psychosomatic control over their body through years of physical
discipline, primarily heart rate and body temperature. This causes
a person to factor in additional things into their physical health
when training. If you can make parts of your body hotter than
others, it explains why some vitalists refer to it as a type of
energy. In these cases it is medically valid, but extremely rare,
but you would likely have to travel to Tibet, India, or the
mountains of China to find someone you could use acupuncture on.

yrreg

17th February 2006, 04:38 PM

I think you'll find that constitutes an emotional response.

I am still waiting for an answer to my question to Yrreg - What is it about emotional responses that worry him, what does he feel is wrong with robust debate?

People on this list presumably feel strongly about alternative medicine, why cannot Y.reg debate on this level. If confrontation makes Y.reg so unhappy all he needs to do is go to a more pro-acupuncture list. If Y.reg really cares about the points on debate he should start answering some questions. I would rather listen to mild sarcasm and the occasional passionate outburst than to veiled insults.

Yuri

Emotional responses of the kind in which people are called stupid and to be engaged in stupidity, are inhibitive to productive discussion, because they cloud the creative faculty of the mind to arrive at solutions to questions which solutions could be workable even though not in accordance with scientific doctrines of today -- in which case we have to broaden into new directions our concept and practice of science.

Consider war, it is not a rational answer to the conflict among men, but an emotional one. That's why we have to avoid emotionalism in our discourse here, if we want to be productively useful to each other instead of slaughtering each other.

However, there is emotion and emotion. The emotion that drives people to find the programming that exists or might exist or should exist in everything, that is one emotion that should always dwell in the hearts of men, who are given to the quest for knowledge wherever the quest leads them.

People on this list presumably feel strony about alternative medicine, why cannot Y.reg debate on this level. If confrontation makes Y.reg so unhappy all he needs to do is go to a more pro-acupuncture list. If Y.reg really cares about the points on debate he should start answering some questions. I would rather listen to mild sarcasm and the occasional passionate outburst than to veiled insults. -- Yuri

That is where and why people here are wrong, and I am right to be here, because I am a super skeptic with a demanding scientific critical attitude, i.e., open to all directions except fanaticism and bigotry.

Here is a saying from my favorite student of human behavior, Pes Oir Amsus:

Be not like unto frogs which chant in unison.

This is a rhetorical question: Has anything radically new ever been found by dwelling on the present doctrines of science and confining one's mind to them as to exclude all other avenues of thought imaginable and unimaginable?

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=1448085#post1448085
CE 16th February 2006, 05:14 AM post 55

I am modesty aside a super skeptic: where everyone is in the bandwagon, like taking up Buddhism or bashing acupuncture, then I will take the opposite tack.

About answering questions, I am always in a hurry, so I have to choose what questions to answer in order to benefit all parties here, of whatever persuasion or sympathy, specially visitors who seek to read something of help to themselves, and not be bored with endless nitpicking that totally forgets the big picture which can be set forth in the short statement.

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Bude
http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/5260/putai26eo.gif

yrreg

17th February 2006, 04:49 PM

( . . . )

Is one at least one successful acupuncture treatment fact, or all are fictions?

Why just ask for only one successful acupuncture treatment? Because the adversaries of acupuncture insist with all certainty that in all these millennia of acupuncture practice, there has not been accomplished one genuine truly medically authentic successful cure.

Consider these categorical universal pronouncements from the adversaries of acupuncture:

Research during the past 20 years has not demonstrated that acupuncture is effective against any disease. -- NCAHF
http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/acu.html

Research during the past twenty years has failed to demonstrate that acupuncture is effective against any disease. -- NCAHF
http://www.ncahf.org/pp/acu.html

Science doesn't have to explain the effects of acupuncture, because so far the acupuncturists cannot show an effect. -- Brodski
http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=1448143&postcount=57

There is zero evidence that acupuncture successful in treating any medical conditions. All evidence supporting acupuncture is for symptoms, more specifically only subjective symptoms. There is zero evidence for acupuncture being successful with objective symptoms. -- 3logic
http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=1448295&postcount=61

[More categorical universal statements to the same end can be found and presented here, but the above are enough.]

---------------

Well, what do you guys say here, who are adamant with complete and absolute certainty that acupuncture has not produced in all the millennia of its practice one successful medical cure, that can hurdle all the criteria of a successful treatment as demanded by today's conventional scientific medicine?

Well, what do you guys say here, who are adamant with complete and absolute certainty that acupuncture has not produced in all the millennia of its practice one successful medical cure, that can hurdle all the criteria of a successful treatment as demanded by today's conventional scientific medicine?

Just please answer that question or participate by reading but don't post -- unless and until you want to answer that question.

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Bude
http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/5260/putai26eo.gif

Yuri Nalyssus

17th February 2006, 05:08 PM

Consider war, it is not a rational answer to the conflict among men, but an emotional one. That's why we have to avoid emotionalism in our discourse here, if we want to be productively useful to each other instead of slaughtering each other.
You can kill people by email?.. Cool

Here is a saying from my favorite student of human behavior, Pes Oir Amsus:

Be not like unto frogs which chant in unison.

This is a rhetorical question
Just as well you said, I didn't think it was even an ordinary question.

Has anything radically new ever been found by dwelling on the present doctrines of science and confining one's mind to them as to exclude all other avenues of thought imaginable and unimaginable?

Where do you want me to start? Oops, sorry, more questions...

About answering questions, I am always in a hurry, so I have to choose what questions to answer in order to benefit all parties here?

...bored with endless nitpicking...

Who could possibly be bored with such a thing?

Yuri

Mojo

17th February 2006, 08:16 PM

Emotional responses of the kind in which people are called stupid... Not necessarily: it might be an accurate, objective and dispassionate assessment.

yrreg

17th February 2006, 10:15 PM

http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=1453461&postcount=15

Please answer this question, else please just read, don't post
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Originally Posted by yrreg :

( . . . )

Is one at least one successful acupuncture treatment fact, or all are fictions?

Why just ask for only one successful acupuncture treatment? Because the adversaries of acupuncture insist with all certainty that in all these millennia of acupuncture practice, there has not been accomplished one genuine truly medically authentic successful cure.

Consider these categorical universal pronouncements from the adversaries of acupuncture:

Research during the past 20 years has not demonstrated that acupuncture is effective against any disease. -- NCAHF
http://www.quackwatch.org/01Quackery...opics/acu.html

Research during the past twenty years has failed to demonstrate that acupuncture is effective against any disease. -- NCAHF
http://www.ncahf.org/pp/acu.html

Science doesn't have to explain the effects of acupuncture, because so far the acupuncturists cannot show an effect. -- Brodski
http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php...3&postcount=57

There is zero evidence that acupuncture successful in treating any medical conditions. All evidence supporting acupuncture is for symptoms, more specifically only subjective symptoms. There is zero evidence for acupuncture being successful with objective symptoms. -- 3logic
http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php...5&postcount=61

[More categorical universal statements to the same end can be found and presented here, but the above are enough.]

---------------

Well, what do you guys say here, who are adamant with complete and absolute certainty that acupuncture has not produced in all the millennia of its practice one successful medical cure, that can hurdle all the criteria of a successful treatment as demanded by today's conventional scientific medicine?

Well, what do you guys say here, who are adamant with complete and absolute certainty that acupuncture has not produced in all the millennia of its practice one successful medical cure, that can hurdle all the criteria of a successful treatment as demanded by today's conventional scientific medicine?

Just please answer that question or participate by reading but don't post -- unless and until you want to answer that question.

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Bude.

http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/5260/putai26eo.gif

Mojo

18th February 2006, 02:54 AM

Well, what do you guys say here, who are adamant with complete and absolute certainty that acupuncture has not produced in all the millennia of its practice one successful medical cure, that can hurdle all the criteria of a successful treatment as demanded by today's conventional scientific medicine?

Just please answer that question or participate by reading but don't post -- unless and until you want to answer that question.I have already explained what I say to this, but presumably you didn't understand. I'll reiterate: an anecdotal report of someone recovering after receiving treatment does not tell us that the treatment is effective. It just tells us that they got better (or that someone thought they did) after receiving the treatment.

It is not possible to demonstrate that a treatment works for a single case. Other factors need to be eliminated. The fact that someone got better after receiving a treatment does not prove that the treatment caused the improvement. We need to know how many other people have been treated and what proportion of them got better; we also need to know what proportion of people suffering from the same condition get better without receiving the treatment. Quite apart from anything else, it is possible for a patient's condition to improve spontaneously without intervention.

To demonstrate that a treatment actually works, you need to carry out a controlled trial. You take two groups of patients, but only give the treatment to one group. The only difference between the two groups is that one has been given the treatment and the other hasn't, so if there is a difference between the outcomes for the groups, you can be reasonably certain that the difference was caused by the treatment, as long as you have designed your trial properly. Of course you also need to randomise and double blind the study to eliminate the placebo effect and observer bias.

yrreg

18th February 2006, 05:12 AM

I have already explained what I say to this, but presumably you didn't understand. I'll reiterate: an anecdotal report of someone recovering after receiving treatment does not tell us that the treatment is effective. It just tells us that they got better (or that someone thought they did) after receiving the treatment.

It is not possible to demonstrate that a treatment works for a single case. Other factors need to be eliminated. The fact that someone got better after receiving a treatment does not prove that the treatment caused the improvement. We need to know how many other people have been treated and what proportion of them got better; we also need to know what proportion of people suffering from the same condition get better without receiving the treatment. Quite apart from anything else, it is possible for a patient's condition to improve spontaneously without intervention.

To demonstrate that a treatment actually works, you need to carry out a controlled trial. You take two groups of patients, but only give the treatment to one group. The only difference between the two groups is that one has been given the treatment and the other hasn't, so if there is a difference between the outcomes for the groups, you can be reasonably certain that the difference was caused by the treatment, as long as you have designed your trial properly. Of course you also need to randomise and double blind the study to eliminate the placebo effect and observer bias.

So, according to you in your own words:

It is not possible to demonstrate that a treatment [acupuncture ] works for a single case [cure].

Or you really wanted to state that:

It is not possible (...) that a treatment [acupuncture] works for a single case [cure]. [Removing the phrase "to demonstrate"]

Please be more specific.

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Bude
http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/5260/putai26eo.gif

Mojo

18th February 2006, 05:27 AM

Ryokan

18th February 2006, 05:36 AM

Last night I had a headache, and read some Japanese comics before I went to bed. And when I woke up, the headache was gone! True story!

Japanese comics heal headaches!

I know this is just a single case, and entirely anecdotal, but that's enough, isn't it?

Mojo

18th February 2006, 05:45 AM

Oh dear. I suspect that yrreg will shortly be starting a thread called "Facts and fictions in Japanese comics".

SirPhilip

18th February 2006, 12:25 PM

Last night I had a headache, and read some Japanese comics before I went to bed. And when I woke up, the headache was gone! True story! Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. :)

brodski

18th February 2006, 12:52 PM

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. :)
You're just stuck in the "evidence" based paradigm. :p

Ryokan

18th February 2006, 01:39 PM

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. :)

Is one at least one successful Japanese comic treatment fact, or all are fictions?

Why just ask for only one successful Japanese comic treatment? Because the adversaries of Japanese comics as a headache cure insist with all certainty that in all these decades of Japanese comic reading, there has not been accomplished one genuine truly medically authentic successful cure of headache.

-------

Well, what do you guys say here, who are adamant with complete and absolute certainty that Japanese comics have not produced in all the decades of its practice one successful headache cure, that can hurdle all the criteria of a successful treatment as demanded by today's conventional scientific medicine?

Just please answer that question or participate by reading but don't post -- unless and until you want to answer that question.

Yuri Nalyssus

18th February 2006, 02:45 PM

Why just ask for only one successful Japanese comic treatment? Because the adversaries of Japanese comics as a headache cure insist with all certainty that in all these decades of Japanese comic reading, there has not been accomplished one genuine truly medically authentic successful cure of headache.
Emotional responses such as this are inhibiting of a clearer mode of discussiveness, clouding of the creative facility as you might think they are.
I am here and you are here and we are all together. Don't shoot the messenger, there's no Art in that.
[Goo goo ga joob]

Yuri

yrreg

18th February 2006, 03:01 PM

So, according to you in your own words:

Originally Posted by Mojo :
It is not possible to demonstrate that a treatment [acupuncture ] works for a single case [cure].

Or you really wanted to state that:

It is not possible (...) that a treatment [acupuncture] works for a single case [cure]. [Removing the phrase "to demonstrate"]

Please be more specific.

Thanks for your reply.

I mean what I said. Note that I included the words "to demonstrate" in that sentence, and that I did not include the word "acupuncture". It is not possible to demonstrate that any treatment works by looking at a single case. If you're just looking at a single case, it is always possible that any observed improvement is caused by something other than the treatment being considered, or that the patient would simply have got better anyway. Go back and read the rest of the post, and take care to read all the words, not just selected words that you think bolster your case.

If I may, do you think that you are disposed to answer these two questions below with an yes or no answer?

---------------
1. In regard to acupuncture, Yes or No: It is possible to demonstrate that a treatment works for a single case.

Yes means: In regard to acupuncture, yes, it is possible to demonstrate that a treatment works for a single case.

No means: In regard to acupuncture, no, it is not possible to demonstrate that a treatment works for a single case.
2. In regard to acupuncture, Yes or No: It is possible that a treatment works for a single case.

Yes means: In regard to acupuncture, yes, it is possible that a treatment works for a single case.

No means: In regard to acupuncture, no, it is not possible that a treatment works for a single case.
---------------------

In all events, thanks for your continued interest.

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Bude.
http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/5260/putai26eo.gif

brodski

18th February 2006, 03:01 PM

Emotional responses such as this are inhibiting of a clearer mode of discussiveness, clouding of the creative facility as you might think they are.
I am here and you are here and we are all together. Don't shoot the messenger, there's no Art in that.
[Goo goo ga joob]

Yuri:dl:

Mojo

18th February 2006, 03:45 PM

1. In regard to acupuncture, Yes or No: It is possible to demonstrate that a treatment works for a single case. Read and understand the post you were replying to, and you'll know my position on this.

2. In regard to acupuncture, Yes or No: It is possible that a treatment works for a single case. It's not a question of whether it is possible, but of whether there is evidence that it actually works. At the moment there is evidence that sticking needles into people has an effect on them, but the evidence that the specific effects claimed for acupuncture are anything more than placebo is not good.

A particular problem for the theory of acupuncture, of course, is the absence of the structure of "meridians" on which it is said to rely. The theory arose at a time in which dissection of human bodies was not allowed in China, so people just guessed about what might lie below the skin. And guessed wrongly.

yrreg

18th February 2006, 06:06 PM

Thanks for your reply.

If I may, do you think that you are disposed to answer these two questions below with an yes or no answer?

---------------
1. In regard to acupuncture, Yes or No: It is possible to demonstrate that a treatment works for a single case.

Yes means: In regard to acupuncture, yes, it is possible to demonstrate that a treatment works for a single case.

No means: In regard to acupuncture, no, it is not possible to demonstrate that a treatment works for a single case.
2. In regard to acupuncture, Yes or No: It is possible that a treatment works for a single case.

Yes means: In regard to acupuncture, yes, it is possible that a treatment works for a single case.

No means: In regard to acupuncture, no, it is not possible that a treatment works for a single case.
---------------------

In all events, thanks for your continued interest.

If I may, I think you have not answered my original question, now put in an Yes or No formulation:

Yes or No: Acupuncture has effected a cure to a medicall complaint.

Just, answer Yes or No.

And also please just answer Yes or No to the two questions in the quote box.

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Bude.
http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/5260/putai26eo.gif

Ryokan

18th February 2006, 06:46 PM

Yes or No: Acupuncture has effected a cure to a medicall complaint.

Just, answer Yes or No.

How can we answer this? It's impossible to know.

All we have a re the numerous scientific researchs into acupuncture, and they all conclude that there is nothing in acupuncture beyond the placebo effect.

And also please just answer Yes or No to the two questions in the quote box.

Ditto for those questions.

Yrreg, you probably won't answer this question, but what if I had used the same rhetoric on Buddhism in your critical to Buddhism threads? Would you have accepted it?

Mojo

19th February 2006, 04:17 AM

If I may, I think you have not answered my original question, now put in an Yes or No formulation:

Yes or No: Acupuncture has effected a cure to a medicall complaint.

Just, answer Yes or No.I don't know: the evidence is not good enough to make a definitive statement one way or the other. There is certainly not enough evidence to conclude that it works. There are published studies that suggest that sticking needles into people has some sort of effect, but there is no strong evidence supporting acupuncture's specific claims to be more than a placebo effect. While there are some studies that appear to support it, there may be problems with the blinding (it is difficult to produce a convincing placebo for sticking a needle into somebody), and there was a study (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15870415&query_hl=1&itool=pubmed_DocSum) published last year in which it was found that it didn't matter where the needles were stuck (the "sham acupuncture" involved sticking the needles in points other than acupuncture points: see here (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4508597.stm)), suggesting strongly that all the stuff about meridians and acupuncture points is nonsense.

As I have already said, the mere fact that someone's condition has improved after they received a treatment does not mean that the treatment caused the improvement.

yrreg

19th February 2006, 04:38 AM

Yes or No: Acupuncture has effected a cure to a medical complaint.

Just answer Yes or No.

How can we answer this? It's impossible to know.

All we have are the numerous scientific researchs into acupuncture, and they all conclude that there is nothing in acupuncture beyond the placebo effect.
------------------

And also please just answer Yes or No to the two questions in the quote box.

Ditto for those questions.
-----------------

Yrreg, you probably won't answer this question, but what if I had used the same rhetoric on Buddhism in your critical to Buddhism threads? Would you have accepted it?

Yrreg: Yes or No: Acupuncture has effected a cure to a medical complaint. Just answer Yes or No.

Ryokan: How can we answer this? It's impossible to know.
--------------

Dear good friend, Ryokan, you tell me that "it's impossible to know" whether to choose Preposition 1 (P-1) or Proposition 2 (P-2), as fact:

P-1: Yes: Acupuncture has effected a cure to a medical complaint.

P-2: No: Acupuncture has not effected a cure to a medical complaint.

---------------

Please confirm if that is your mind.

-------------------

Yrreg, you probably won't answer this question, but what if I had used the same rhetoric on Buddhism in your critical to Buddhism threads? Would you have accepted it? -- Ryokan

Good friend Ryokan, I like to engage in that exercise with you described in your question above; please start a thread here in this forum and I will accommodate you. We will have a lot of fun.

---------------------

Remember everyone here, I don't know about you guys but I am here for the fun.

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Bude.
http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/5260/putai26eo.gif

yrreg

19th February 2006, 04:54 AM

Originally Posted by yrreg:

Thanks for your reply.

If I may, do you think that you are disposed to answer these two questions below with an yes or no answer?

---------------

1. In regard to acupuncture, Yes or No: It is possible to demonstrate that a treatment works for a single case.

Yes means: In regard to acupuncture, yes, it is possible to demonstrate that a treatment works for a single case.

No means: In regard to acupuncture, no, it is not possible to demonstrate that a treatment works for a single case.
2. In regard to acupuncture, Yes or No: It is possible that a treatment works for a single case.

Yes means: In regard to acupuncture, yes, it is possible that a treatment works for a single case.

No means: In regard to acupuncture, no, it is not possible that a treatment works for a single case.
---------------------

In all events, thanks for your continued interest.

If I may, I think you have not answered my original question, now put in an Yes or No formulation:

Yes or No: Acupuncture has effected a cure to a medicall complaint.

Just answer Yes or No.

And also please just answer Yes or No to the two questions in the quote box.

-----------------

I don't know: the evidence is not good enough to make a definitive statement one way or the other. There is certainly not enough evidence to conclude that it works. There are published studies that suggest that sticking needles into people has some sort of effect, but there is no strong evidence supporting acupuncture's specific claims to be more than a placebo effect. While there are some studies that appear to support it, there may be problems with the blinding (it is difficult to produce a convincing placebo for sticking a needle into somebody), and there was a study (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15870415&query_hl=1&itool=pubmed_DocSum) published last year in which it was found that it didn't matter where the needles were stuck (the "sham acupuncture" involved sticking the needles in points other than acupuncture points: see here (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4508597.stm)), suggesting strongly that all the stuff about meridians and acupuncture points is nonsense.

As I have already said, the mere fact that someone's condition has improved after they received a treatment does not mean that the treatment caused the improvement.

Thanks, Mojo, for your continued interest in this thread.

Let's see the answer of Ryokan to my preceding post.

Best regards.

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Bude.
http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/5260/putai26eo.gif

Mojo

19th February 2006, 05:17 PM

Thanks, Mojo, for your continued interest in this thread.

Let's see the answer of Ryokan to my preceding post.Don't you want to respond to what I've posted?

yrreg

19th February 2006, 06:20 PM

Originally Posted by yrreg :
Thanks, Mojo, for your continued interest in this thread.

Let's see the answer of Ryokan to my preceding post.

-----------------

Don't you want to respond to what I've posted?

Mojo, thanks for your continued interest in this thread.

I am working on the big picture in the short statement about facts and fictions in acupuncture.

I might get somewhere or might get nowwhere or even expose myself to be an ignorant bumpkin, but the fun is in the trying.

So, again:

Thanks, Mojo, for your continued interest in this thread.

Let's see the answer of Ryokan to my preceding post. --

Originally Posted by yrreg

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Bude.
http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/5260/putai26eo.gif

Wheezebucket

19th February 2006, 06:38 PM

I think maybe what some of these people are trying to tell you is that sure, it's great you want to get facts about accupuncture, but you're going about it in entirely the wrong fashion. You don't get facts and/or proof from anecdotal evidence, as Ryokan pointed out fairly well, as did others. Your first outline of how to accomplish your fact finding goals immediately dooms it to failure because it's set up to fit your personal views already. It doesn't follow scientific method. Then, when people point that out, you get wrapped up in semantics and make it impossible to continue.

You've also provided nothing as far as evidence or proof to even warrant *starting* this discussion, considering that there has been evidence presented stating that it *isn't* a valid form of medical treatment. Until you can dispute those claims or provide evidence to the contrary (evidence, not anecdotes), you don't seem to have much ground to stand on.

Or I'm way off base. Just the way it seems to me.

Ryokan

19th February 2006, 11:44 PM

Yrreg: Yes or No: Acupuncture has effected a cure to a medical complaint. Just answer Yes or No.

Ryokan: How can we answer this? It's impossible to know.
--------------

Dear good friend, Ryokan, you tell me that "it's impossible to know" whether to choose Preposition 1 (P-1) or Proposition 2 (P-2), as fact:

P-1: Yes: Acupuncture has effected a cure to a medical complaint.

P-2: No: Acupuncture has not effected a cure to a medical complaint.

---------------

Please confirm if that is your mind.

Yes, the question is impossible to answer, and I can't choose either your preposition 1 or your preposition 2. To answer, I would have to review every case of treatment by acupuncture in the history of mankind, and all those cases would have to be documented scientifically. If you don't see that the question is imposible to answer, you're the worst sceptic I've ever met.

Yrreg, you probably won't answer this question, but what if I had used the same rhetoric on Buddhism in your critical to Buddhism threads? Would you have accepted it? -- Ryokan

Good friend Ryokan, I like to engage in that exercise with you described in your question above; please start a thread here in this forum and I will accommodate you. We will have a lot of fun.

You must think I'm an idiot. Do you really think I'm going to start a new thread looking for answers from you to specific questions, when you're not even answering the ones in this thread?

Mojo

20th February 2006, 12:45 AM

Yes, the question is impossible to answer, and I can't choose either your preposition 1 or your preposition 2. To answer, I would have to review every case of treatment by acupuncture in the history of mankind, and all those cases would have to be documented scientifically.Actually, if you're looking at individual cases, the problem wouldn't be resolved by proper documentation. Even if an individual patient improves after receiving a particular treatment, you cannot conclude that the treatment caused the improvement. To draw any solid conclusions about a treatment's effectiveness you have to eliminate other factors such as spontaneous improvement, and you cannot do this by looking at anecdotal evidence. You have to conduct controlled trials. This is why yrreg's approach of looking at individual cases is nonsense.

Rolfe

20th February 2006, 02:51 AM

Just please answer that question or participate by reading but don't post -- unless and until you want to answer that question.I don't think the question is worth answering. It's so simplistic that it demonstrates the questioner has a very incomplete understanding of the logic of evidence.

I'm just posting to assert my right to post in any thread I wish to post in, and demonstrate that I'm not subject to Yrreg's orders.

Rolfe.

Harlequin

20th February 2006, 03:59 AM

If I may, I think you have not answered my original question, now put in an Yes or No formulation:

Yes or No: Acupuncture has effected a cure to a medicall complaint.

Just, answer Yes or No.

Of course, this needs to be divided into two questions:

Yes or No: People receiving acupuncture treatment for a medical complaint have felt relief from their complaint
Answer: Yes. This is supported by many studies, in addition to the usual anecdotal evidence.

Yes or No: This relief was caused by the acupuncture treatment.
Answer: Difficult to tell for sure. Studies so far have clearly been showing "No".

That's why nobody is willing to answer only "Yes or No" to your question, it is actually a 2-part question with different answers for each part.

yrreg

20th February 2006, 03:01 PM

Post of Ryokan Yesterday, 02:44 PM #39
http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=1457029&postcount=39

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=1456766#post1455774

Yrreg: Yes or No: Acupuncture has effected a cure to a medical complaint. Just answer Yes or No.

Ryokan: How can we answer this? It's impossible to know.
--------------

Dear good friend, Ryokan, you tell me that "it's impossible to know" whether to choose Proposition 1 (P-1) or Proposition 2 (P-2), as fact:

P-1: Yes: Acupuncture has effected a cure to a medical complaint.

P-2: No: Acupuncture has not effected a cure to a medical complaint.
---------------

Please confirm if that is your mind.

[Ryokan:] Yes, the question is impossible to answer, and I can't choose either your preposition 1 or your preposition 2. To answer, I would have to review every case of treatment by acupuncture in the history of mankind, and all those cases would have to be documented scientifically. If you don't see that the question is imposible to answer, you're the worst sceptic I've ever met.

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=1456766#post1455774

Yrreg, you probably won't answer this question, but what if I had used the same rhetoric on Buddhism in your critical to Buddhism threads? Would you have accepted it? -- Ryokan

Good friend Ryokan, I like to engage in that exercise with you described in your question above; please start a thread here in this forum and I will accommodate you. We will have a lot of fun.

You must think I'm an idiot. Do you really think I'm going to start a new thread looking for answers from you to specific questions, when you're not even answering the ones in this thread?

End of Post of Ryokan Yesterday, 02:44 PM #39
http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=1457029&postcount=39

=================================

To recapitulate:Yrreg: Yes or No: Acupuncture has effected a cure to a medical complaint. Just answer Yes or No.
Ryokan: How can we answer this? It's impossible to know.Yrreg: Dear good friend, Ryokan, you tell me that "it's

impossible to know" whether to choose Proposition 1 (P-1) or Proposition 2 (P-2), as fact:

P-1: Yes: Acupuncture has effected a cure to a medical complaint.

P-2: No: Acupuncture has not effected a cure to a medical complaint.

Please confirm if that is your mind.

Yes, the question is impossible to answer, and I can't choose either your preposition 1 or your preposition 2. To answer, I would have to review every case of treatment by acupuncture in the history of mankind, and all those cases would have to be documented scientifically. If you don't see that the question is imposible to answer, you're the worst sceptic I've ever met.

======================

Dear Ryokan: first I am not engaging in semantic tricks or any kind of tricks here.

You say: "the question is impossible to answer, I can't choose either your preposition 1 or your preposition 2."[Because it's] "impossible to know" whether to choose Proposition 1 (P-1) or Proposition 2 (P-2), as fact:

P-1: Yes: Acupuncture has effected a cure to a medical complaint.

P-2: No: Acupuncture has not effected a cure to a medical complaint.

However, unless I am mistaken, the general conviction here is that the question can be answered and answered in the negative, namely:

P-2: No: Acupuncture has not effected a cure to a medical complaint.

Isn't that what people are saying here, that acupuncture in fact has not effected a cure to a medical complaint, meaning acupuncture has not led to any cure to any one case of a medical complaint?

So they believe that the question of the choice between P-1 or P-2 is possible to know, to answer; and they do know and do answer and that in the negative:

P-2: No: Acupuncture has not effected a cure to a medical complaint.

In which negative choice obviously they have "reviewed every case of treatment by acupuncture in the history of mankind," and "have documented scientifically all those cases," QED.

All contrary to your conviction:

Ryokan:
Yes, the question is impossible to answer, and I can't choose either your preposition 1 or your preposition 2. To answer, I would have to review every case of treatment by acupuncture in the history of mankind, and all those cases would have to be documented scientifically. If you don't see that the question is imposible to answer, you're the worst sceptic I've ever met.

---------------------

So, shall we wait and see how people react to your position, who maintain that:

(P-2) No: Acupuncture has not effected a cure to a medical complaint.

--------------------

About this other matter:http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=1456766#post1455774

Yrreg, you probably won't answer this question, but what if I had used the same rhetoric on Buddhism in your critical to Buddhism threads? Would you have accepted it? -- Ryokan

Good friend Ryokan, I like to engage in that exercise with you described in your question above; please start a thread here in this forum and I will accommodate you. We will have a lot of fun.

You must think I'm an idiot. Do you really think I'm going to start a new thread looking for answers from you to specific questions, when you're not even answering the ones in this thread?

Suppose you tell me what kind of topic on Buddhism you have in mind, and I will be to one to sponsor a thread on it, not you; would that be all right now? Then you can use the same rhetoric as I am using here, or any rhetoric you prefer.

--------------------

Back to acupuncture, I tend to agree with you that the question whether or not "Acupuncture has effected a cure to a medical complaint," is impossible to know, to answer: one way or the other.

And I tend to agree with you: because "To answer, I would have to review every case of treatment by acupuncture in the history of mankind, and all those cases would have to be documented scientifically," which is impossible.

Let's sit back and wait to see how people react to this insight of ours; shall we, good friend Ryokan?

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Bude.
http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/5260/putai26eo.gif

Mojo

20th February 2006, 03:22 PM

Back to acupuncture, I tend to agree with you that the question whether or not "Acupuncture has effected a cure to a medical complaint," is impossible to know, to answer: one way or the other.

And I tend to agree with you: because "To answer, I would have to review every case of treatment by acupuncture in the history of mankind, and all those cases would have to be documented scientifically," which is impossible.So I take it, then, that you do not claim to know of any case where acupuncture has effected a cure, because if you did you would just be able to point to it, rather than having to "review every case of treatment by acupuncture in the history of mankind" in the hope of finding one.

However, as I and others have already pointed out to you, there is a simpler way to find out whether or not it works: controlled and blinded trials. There are researchers who are actually doing this. The published results are so far rather inconclusive, partly because of the difficulty in devising a convincing placebo, and, of course, a major problem for proponents of acupuncture was shown up by the study I cited above that strongly suggested that the theory behind acupuncture is bunk. I have no doubt the progress towards some sort of conclusion will eventually be made.

yrreg

20th February 2006, 05:22 PM

So I take it, then, that you do not claim to know of any case where acupuncture has effected a cure, because if you did you would just be able to point to it, rather than having to "review every case of treatment by acupuncture in the history of mankind" in the hope of finding one.

However, as I and others have already pointed out to you, there is a simpler way to find out whether or not it works: controlled and blinded trials. There are researchers who are actually doing this. The published results are so far rather inconclusive, partly because of the difficulty in devising a convincing placebo, and, of course, a major problem for proponents of acupuncture was shown up by the study I cited above that strongly suggested that the theory behind acupuncture is bunk. I have no doubt the progress towards some sort of conclusion will eventually be made.

Ask Ryokan first, he is the one who says that it is impossible to know whether or not acupuncture has effected a cure in a medical complaint. because it would be necessary to have examined every instances of acupuncture and have it documented -- which according to him is impossible.

Actually I maintain an open mind and agree with him; but on the other hand, I am looking for at least one case of successful acupuncture that satisfies all the controls imposed upon it in order to pronounce that a cure did occur and it is due to the acupuncture intervention.

You are keen on evidence that can prove the efficacy of acupuncture, but I keep thinking of the evidence being sought by scientists who do examine the efficacy of acupuncture.

And I came upon this statement from Carl Sagan, namely, that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

I think Rumsfeld resorted to that argument in re weapons of mass destruction in Ir ag. Hahahaha.

However, I think Carl Sagan has a very good point there, if I understand him correctly.

Here is an example I have thought up which I believe is very common with the quest for evidence.

There ar aerial plants which can survive and grow and reproduce in the air without support for food in soil and water -- apparently. Now, suppose that some people had never come across such plants, then the first time they encounter them, the keep looking for soil and water from the ground which should have gotten to the aerial plants by one way or another.

In this case they are looking for evidence of nutrients and water from the ground; so they are looking in the wrong direction.

Is that a good example of looking for evidence in the wrong or not productive directions. There are also cases of looking for evidence of the kinds already customarily looked for and not finding them, but there might be found evidence of the kinds not customarily being looked for.

About aerial plants, I might have to correct myself in regard to how they really get their nutrients and water.

I will get back to you as soon as I have done more reading about aerial plants.

Right now I have to get ready to leave for work.

Thanks Mojo for your interest.

Let's wait and see what Ryokan says about your post.

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Bude.
http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/5260/putai26eo.gif

PS I have to go now, the wife is calling me to breakfast and if I don't report pronto, she will pick up everything and then no breakfast for me.

Pragmatist

20th February 2006, 05:22 PM

However, unless I am mistaken, the general conviction here is that the question can be answered and answered in the negative, namely:

P-2: No: Acupuncture has not effected a cure to a medical complaint.

Yes, you are either mistaken, or deliberately misrepresenting what has been said.

Isn't that what people are saying here, that acupuncture in fact has not effected a cure to a medical complaint, meaning acupuncture has not led to any cure to any one case of a medical complaint?

I would strongly suggest you go and learn some basic logic, as you constantly seem to fall into the same fallacies. No, that is not what people are saying here. What people are saying here is what they have actually said - which is that they have not seen any convincing evidence that shows acupuncture to be effective for anything, beyond possible placebo effect.

So they believe that the question of the choice between P-1 or P-2 is possible to know, to answer; and they do know and do answer and that in the negative:

That doesn't follow, it is another logical fallacy based on your own misrepresentation of other's responses.

brodski

21st February 2006, 01:26 AM

Yrreg specifically stated that acupuncture would be an "acceptable" course of treatment for those who had only limited resources for medicine, yet he can't seem to grasp the fact that those are the people who should be targeting their resources towards proven effective treatments. If you can only afford one treatment, you best pick the right one, if you've got money to waste playing pincushion, and still have enough to see a real doctor, then obviously your priorities will be slightly different.
All the studies I have seen on acupuncture show acupuncture to be, at best, only slightly better than placebo, nothing like the miraculous cures that many proponents claim, and certainly nowhere near as effective as conventional medicine for pain relief (which is the area which acupuncture shows most "promise" in).

Mojo

21st February 2006, 02:01 AM

Actually I maintain an open mind and agree with him; but on the other hand, I am looking for at least one case of successful acupuncture that satisfies all the controls imposed upon it in order to pronounce that a cure did occur and it is due to the acupuncture intervention.You will not find such a case, for reasons that have already been explained. For a start, you would never be able to eliminate the possibility of spontaneous improvement unrelated to the treatment.

What you need to look at is controlled trials with a large enough sample size for a reliable conclusion to be drawn.

You are keen on evidence that can prove the efficacy of acupuncture, but I keep thinking of the evidence being sought by scientists who do examine the efficacy of acupuncture.No, you don't. You keep harping on about your mythical N=1 anecdote of a successful cure. If you want to know what real scientists are doing to examine the efficacy of acupuncture, I suggest that you go on Pubmed and look for reports of properly controlled and blinded clinical trials.

yrreg

21st February 2006, 04:07 AM

Harlequin

21st February 2006, 04:14 AM

Well, I guess I have to insist that you folks answer: yes or no, to this sentence:

Acupuncture has effected a cure to a medical complaint.

You just don't get it. This is not really one premise, it is two.
1. People who use acupuncture feel relief.
2. The relief is not just from placebo, but actually caused by acupuncture.

Most people here agree with #1 and disagree with #2.

Mojo

21st February 2006, 05:33 AM

Well, I guess I have to insist that you folks answer: yes or no, to this sentence:

Acupuncture has effected a cure to a medical complaint.

then explain briefly.

Or say as Ryokan did, that it's impossible; and give your reasons why it's impossible, as Ryokan did.

We want to have the big picture in the short statement.

The way I see it, you bring in all kinds of concepts and explanations which diffuse and mess up the issue unnecessarily.The concept that has been introduced, of the placebo controlled blinded trial, is vitally important if you want to establish whether or not a treatment is effective. You take two sets of patients, give one set the treatment, and the other set a dummy treatment that they consider to be the real thing, then you look for differences in outcome between the two groups. As the only difference between them is that one was treated and the other wasn't, a difference in outcome between the two groups can be said with reasonable confidence to be the result of the treatment. This is the only way you will eliminate factors other than the treatment under consideration.

yrreg

21st February 2006, 02:56 PM

Originally Posted by yrreg:

Well, I guess I have to insist that you folks answer: yes or no, to this sentence:

Acupuncture has effected a cure to a medical complaint.

--------------------

You just don't get it. This is not really one premise, it is two.

1. People who use acupuncture feel relief.
2. The relief is not just from placebo, but actually caused by acupuncture.

Most people here agree with #1 and disagree with #2.

There have been people who failed to pass in board examinations because they cannot see the big picture and make the short statement.

Suppose you are taking a medical board examination and the questions are all to be answered with Yes or No, how would you answer the following question? and very important the scoring of the examination would be right answers minus wrong answers, meaning: if the right answers you obtain is 75 and the wrong answers you obtain is 25, and perfect score is 100, then your score for the examination is 50 -- this means if you really cannot answer, don't answer, just leave the Yes and No boxes empty.

Acupuncture has effected a cure to a medical complaint.

--------------------

I want to tell you also that you have nonetheless contributed to further clarification of the issue.

Yrreg

yrreg

21st February 2006, 03:28 PM

----------------
Originally Posted by yrreg :
However, unless I am mistaken, the general conviction here is that the question can be answered and answered in the negative, namely:

P-2: No: Acupuncture has not effected a cure to a medical complaint.
------------------

Yes, you are either mistaken, or deliberately misrepresenting what has been said.

----------------------
Originally Posted by yrreg :
Isn't that what people are saying here, that acupuncture in fact has not effected a cure to a medical complaint, meaning acupuncture has not led to any cure to any one case of a medical complaint?
----------------

I would strongly suggest you go and learn some basic logic, as you constantly seem to fall into the same fallacies. No, that is not what people are saying here. What people are saying here is what they have actually said - which is that they have not seen any convincing evidence that shows acupuncture to be effective for anything, beyond possible placebo effect.

-------------------
Originally Posted by yrreg :
So they believe that the question of the choice between P-1 or P-2 is possible to know, to answer; and they do know and do answer and that in the negative:
----------------

That doesn't follow, it is another logical fallacy based on your own misrepresentation of other's responses.

Would you require me to produce texts from the posters here and also from the mother thread authored by Paineroo,
Any Value in Acupuncture?
[http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=51856], to show you that it is the attitude of folks here "that acupuncture in fact has not effected a cure to a medical complaint, meaning acupuncture has not led to any cure to any one case of a medical complaint?"

Or would you please yourself read the mother thread carefully and thoughtfully, "Any Value in Acupuncture?" and also more carefully and thoughtfully the posts in this present thread?

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Bude.
http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/5260/putai26eo.gif

Mojo

21st February 2006, 06:14 PM

There have been people who failed to pass in board examinations because they cannot see the big picture and make the short statement.If you think that the "big picture" can be expressed in a "short statement" for the topic being discussed here, please make your "short statement", and stop wasting time. You have said that you are "one guy in a hurry", after all.

Pragmatist

21st February 2006, 06:47 PM

Would you require me to produce texts from the posters here and also from the mother thread authored by Paineroo,
Any Value in Acupuncture?
[http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=51856], to show you that it is the attitude of folks here "that acupuncture in fact has not effected a cure to a medical complaint, meaning acupuncture has not led to any cure to any one case of a medical complaint?"

Yes. Please show me the specific evidence in support of your claim that it is the attitude of folks here, "that acupuncture in fact has not effected a cure to a medical complaint, meaning acupuncture has not led to any cure to any one case of a medical complaint."

Thank you. I await your production of that evidence.

Or would you please yourself read the mother thread carefully and thoughtfully, "Any Value in Acupuncture?" and also more carefully and thoughtfully the posts in this present thread?

I have read them all. Have you by the way? Unfortunately I didn't see any evidence that supports the claim you have made above. Nor your original claim that acupuncture was "acceptable" therapy under certain conditions or in certain circumstances.

I'm sure you wouldn't want skeptics on here to think of you as someone who simply makes unsupported claims and then runs away or engages in evasive techniques to avoid presenting evidence in support of them, and so with that in mind I'm sure you'll be more than happy to back up your various claims with some solid evidence. Won't you...?

Pragmatist

21st February 2006, 07:03 PM

If you think that the "big picture" can be expressed in a "short statement" for the topic being discussed here, please make your "short statement", and stop wasting time. You have said that you are "one guy in a hurry", after all.

Hmm...let's see. So far the "short statement" has consisted of 45 posts by Yrreg in two threads (not to mention specifically starting this thread). And so far the evidence shown by Yrreg in support of his claims is precisely...wait a moment...let me count up all the items of evidence...uh...zero...?

I guess I'm somewhat skeptical of the efficacy of the "short statement" on the basis of the evidence thus far...

Jeff Corey

21st February 2006, 07:04 PM

There have been people who failed to pass in board examinations because they cannot see the big picture and make the short statement.

Suppose you are taking a medical board examination and the questions are all to be answered with Yes or No, how would you answer the following question? and very important the scoring of the examination would be right answers minus wrong answers, meaning: if the right answers you obtain is 75 and the wrong answers you obtain is 25, and perfect score is 100, then your score for the examination is 50 -- this means if you really cannot answer, don't answer, just leave the Yes and No boxes empty...

You obviously have no knowledge of what such examinations entail. Such a question would not be asked. The many posters that you have ignored have described the kind of study that would answer a real question, such as , "Does acupucture, as opposed to a placebo, show a statistically significant effect on a specific measurable medical condition in a well controlled double blind study."

CriticalThanking

21st February 2006, 07:33 PM

Yrreg,

Please answer yes or no to the following question:
Do you still beat your spouse?

Answering within the guidelines leaves the impression that at least at one time you have beaten your spouse. There is nowhere on the test to even indicate you have no spouse.

This is not to say that such incorrect/meaningless/false choice questions cannot appear on an exam. A college buddy got no points on a question in which he was to calculate the height a particular fluid would be drawn up a tube by capillary action. He correctly pointed out that the fluid chosen would not be drawn up at all, rather than answer what the instructor wanted. Too bad - no points for being right.

You state you are here to have fun. Hopefully that is not intended to be at the expense of those honestly trying to help. Many are here to have fun as well. In addition, many are here to gain new knowledge, and not continue to flog the deceased equine of questions with logical fallacies.

CT

yrreg

22nd February 2006, 05:03 AM

--------------------------
Originally Posted by yrreg :
Would you require me to produce texts from the posters here and also from the mother thread authored by Paineroo,

Any Value in Acupuncture?
[http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=51856],

to show you that it is the attitude of folks here "that acupuncture in fact has not effected a cure to a medical complaint, meaning acupuncture has not led to any cure to any one case of a medical complaint?"
-------------------------

Yes. Please show me the specific evidence in support of your claim that it is the attitude of folks here, "that acupuncture in fact has not effected a cure to a medical complaint, meaning acupuncture has not led to any cure to any one case of a medical complaint."

Thank you. I await your production of that evidence.

-----------------------------
Originally Posted by yrreg :
Or would you please yourself read the mother thread carefully and thoughtfully, "Any Value in Acupuncture?" and also more carefully and thoughtfully the posts in this present thread?
-----------------------------------------

I have read them all. Have you by the way? Unfortunately I didn't see any evidence that supports the claim you have made above. Nor your original claim that acupuncture was "acceptable" therapy under certain conditions or in certain circumstances.

I'm sure you wouldn't want skeptics on here to think of you as someone who simply makes unsupported claims and then runs away or engages in evasive techniques to avoid presenting evidence in support of them, and so with that in mind I'm sure you'll be more than happy to back up your various claims with some solid evidence. Won't you...?

-------------------
I have read them [posts in the two threads on acupuncture] all. Have you by the way? Unfortunately I didn't see any evidence that supports the claim you have made above. -- Pragmatist
-------------------

I have also read them [posts in the two threads on acupuncture] all and got the impression "that it is the common attitude of folks here:

that acupuncture in fact has not effected a cure to a medical complaint, meaning acupuncture has not led to any cure to any one case of a medical complaint.

However, good friend Pragmatist, if you have the opposite impression and even certainty "that it is not the common attitude of folks here, meaning:

that acupuncture in fact has effected a cure to a medical complaint, meaning acupuncture has led to cures to cases of medical complaints.

Then I defer to your impression and even certainty, meaning I was wrong with my impression, that folks here have the common attitude that acupuncture has not effected a cure to a medical complaint, meaning I accept your sure conclusion from the posts in the two threads concerned, that acupuncture for the folks here has effected cures to medical complaints.

Well, I am so glad that the folks here, who have contributed to the two threads in question about acupuncture, do maintain that acupuncture has effected cures to medical complaints, as testified to by Pragmatist on his reading of the posts in these two threads: Any value in Acupuncture? and Facts and Fictions in Acupuncture.

I didn't author the first thread, Any Value to Acupuncture; but I authored the second thread, the present one here, precisely to ask about the Facts and Fictions in Acupuncture.

And honestly I am so glad, good friend Pragmatist, that you have succeeded to show me the most important fact, namely, that for the folks here:

Acupuncture has effected a cure to a medical complaint.

So, we need not have to quarrel any further.
-------------------

Now, perhaps we should give our attention and concentration to find out very deeply and extensively whatever evidence we can unearth for those cases where acupuncture does effect cures to medical complaints, keeping in mind all the caveats against placebo, spontaneous remission, chance, and of course making sure that our examinations are conducted in a double-blind manner where double-blind control is possible.

Okay?

-------------------

So, you see we have achieved a consensus that is most important to my education and enlightenment, namely:

That folks here have the attitude or certainty even, that acupuncture effects cures to medical complaints.

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Bude.
http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/5260/putai26eo.gif

brodski

22nd February 2006, 05:21 AM

-------------------
I have read them [posts in the two threads on acupuncture] all. Have you by the way? Unfortunately I didn't see any evidence that supports the claim you have made above. -- Pragmatist
-------------------
I have also read them [posts in the two threads on acupuncture] all and got the impression "that it is the common attitude of folks here:

However, good friend Pragmatist, if you have the opposite impression and even certainty "that it is not the common attitude of folks here, meaning:

Then I defer to your impression and even certainty, meaning I was wrong with my impression, that folks here have the common attitude that acupuncture has not effected a cure to a medical complaint, meaning I accept your sure conclusion from the posts in the two threads concerned, that acupuncture for the folks here has effected cures to medical complaints.

Well, I am so glad that the folks here, who have contributed to the two threads in question about acupuncture, do maintain that acupuncture has effected cures to medical complaints, as testified to by Pragmatist on his reading of the posts in these two threads: Any value in Acupuncture? and Facts and Fictions in Acupuncture.

I didn't author the first thread, Any Value to Acupuncture; but I authored the second thread, the present one here, precisely to ask about the Facts and Fictions in Acupuncture.

And honestly I am so glad, good friend Pragmatist, that you have succeeded to show me the most important fact, namely, that for the folks here:

Acupuncture has effected a cure to a medical complaint.

So, we need not have to quarrel any further.
-------------------

Now, perhaps we should give our attention and concentration to find out very deeply and extensively whatever evidence we can unearth for those cases where acupuncture does effect cures to medical complaints, keeping in mind all the caveats against placebo, spontaneous remission, chance, and of course making sure that our examinations are conducted in a double-blind manner where double-blind control is possible.

Okay?

-------------------

So, you see we have achieved a consensus that is most important to my education and enlightenment, namely:
That folks here have the attitude or certainty even, that acupuncture effects cures to medical complaints.

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Bude.http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/5260/putai26eo.gif
sod it, this ignore thing is just too hard on me, Yrregs post seem to be like a sore I just can't stop picking at.
Anyway Yrreg I will answer your question.
I do not believe that acupuncture has ever cured any medical complaint. I am willing to change my mind on this if you can either1) show me one case where acupuncture ahs cured someone, where you can clearly demonstrate that their recovery was caused by the acupuncture, and not just coincidental spontaneous remission.
Failing that
2) Show me controlled experiments which show that patients using acupuncture (as opposed to a placebo) either where more likely to get better, or got better faster than the control groups.
Until this evidence is supplied I will keep with my underlying assumption that acupuncture has never cured anyone and does not work, just as, until I know there is evidence to the contrary, I assume that every other proposed "medical" treatment does not work, and has never cured anybody.

Mojo

22nd February 2006, 06:27 AM

So, you see we have achieved a consensus that is most important to my education and enlightenment, namely:

That folks here have the attitude or certainty even, that acupuncture effects cures to medical complaints.Do you have any evidence to support of your claim "that folks here have the attitude or certainty even, that acupuncture effects cures to medical complaints"? Please provide links to relevant posts, if you can.

You are suggesting that because Pragmatist has said that it is not the attitude of people here that acupuncture definitely does not work, then it must be the attitude of people here that it does. This is a false dilemma. There is a third possibility: that people think that the evidence is not yet good enough to make a definite conclusion one way or the other.

Mojo

22nd February 2006, 06:33 AM

So, you see we have achieved a consensus that is most important to my education and enlightenment, namely:

That folks here have the attitude or certainty even, that acupuncture effects cures to medical complaints.Incidentally, why do you feel that this is so important? You stated in your OP that you want to find out the facts about acupuncture. Why is it so important to you to arrive at a conclusion as to peoples' belief? This will not have any effect on the facts.

Yuri Nalyssus

22nd February 2006, 10:38 AM

Incidentally, why do you feel that this is so important? You stated in your OP that you want to find out the facts about acupuncture. Why is it so important to you to arrive at a conclusion as to peoples' belief? This will not have any effect on the facts.
Y.reg has always been more interested in the effects of "stirring the ants' nest" and in pseudo-Zen-master type outpourings than in any debate about acupuncture

Yuri

Ryokan

22nd February 2006, 12:44 PM

Y.reg has always been more interested in the effects of "stirring the ants' nest" and in pseudo-Zen-master type outpourings than in any debate about acupuncture

Yuri

In other words, he's a troll.

Mojo

22nd February 2006, 01:07 PM

Yup.

yrreg

22nd February 2006, 01:21 PM

Okay, guys -- but first let's all have a good laugh together: hahahahahaaaaaaaaa -- let's have a poll here. I don't know how to do one. So, you just tell me, folks here who are not happy with me, Yes or No, to this sentence:

Acupuncture has effected a cure to a medical complaint.

So, everyone here who have been reacting with me on acupuncture and more specifically here in my own thread, "Facts and Fictions in Acupuncture," imagine that you are shipwrecked in an island where the chieftain there wants to find out: whether you can see the big picture and and perceive the short statement.

He devised a test for all the passengers and crew by which he can eliminate those, who can't see the big picture and understand or formulate the short statement to convey the big picture.

He tells everyone to answer one by one, Yes or No, to the following sentence:

Acupuncture has effected a cure to a medical complaint.

But first he lets you people discuss among yourselves for one whole day what is the answer to give in order to save your lives, each one of you.

Then each one of you by raffle will approach him to tell him his answer, while the rest observe from afar and can't hear the answer.

The one telling the chieftain the answer he wants to hear will be allowed to live, while the one giving the wrong answer will immediately in full view of but not hearing distance, be dispatched to the next world, with a clean slash on the neck by his burly assistant swinging a massive machete.

Imagine you folks are the passengers and crew of the ship, what will your answer be, one by one?

Oh yes, I almost forgot, that chieftain was educated in the U.S.A., in seeing the big picture and saying the short statement.

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Bude.
http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/5260/putai26eo.gif

Mojo

22nd February 2006, 01:27 PM

So, you just tell me, folks here who are not happy with me, Yes or No, to this sentence:Acupuncture has effected a cure to a medical complaint. OK. Yes or No. ;)

Ryokan

22nd February 2006, 01:30 PM

How many times must you be explained this, Yrreg?

I'll try to paint you a picture, once again, using the 'big picture and short statement'.

First, your answer just can't be answered with yes or no. It's as simple as that.

Second, people here are sceptics. Sceptics want to see evidence before they make up their mind on things. All evidence (not anecdotal, but actual double blind tests on large groups) so far suggests that acupunture is either just as good, or just a bit better, than the placebo effect. In other words, you could just as well take a sugar pill.

If evidence to the contrary is presented, sceptics will change their minds.

Do you understand? Please answer yes or no :p

Mojo

22nd February 2006, 01:36 PM

So, everyone here who have been reacting with me on acupuncture and more specifically here in my own thread, "Facts and Fictions in Acupuncture," imagine that you are shipwrecked in an island where the chieftain there wants to find out: whether you can see the big picture and and perceive the short statement.

He devised a test for all the passengers and crew by which he can eliminate those, who can't see the big picture and understand or formulate the short statement to convey the big picture.

He tells everyone to answer one by one, Yes or No, to the following sentence:Acupuncture has effected a cure to a medical complaint.

But first he lets you people discuss among yourselves for one whole day what is the answer to give in order to save your lives, each one of you.

Then each one of you by raffle will approach him to tell him his answer, while the rest observe from afar and can't hear the answer.

The one telling the chieftain the answer he wants to hear will be allowed to live, while the one giving the wrong answer will immediately in full view of but not hearing distance, be dispatched to the next world, with a clean slash on the neck by his burly assistant swinging a massive machete.

Imagine you folks are the passengers and crew of the ship, what will your answer be, one by one?

Oh yes, I almost forgot, that chieftain was educated in the U.S.A., in seeing the big picture and saying the short statement.

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing BuddhaThis may come as a bit of a surprise to you, but threats and ultimatums are not generally the best way to arrive at the truth. You're likely to just hear what people think you want to hear.

The Spanish Inquisition: how very Buddhist. :nope:

Mojo

22nd February 2006, 01:49 PM

All evidence (not anecdotal, but actual double blind tests on large groups) so far suggests that acupunture is either just as good, or just a bit better, than the placebo effect. In other words, you could just as well take a sugar pill. Or maybe that it's just a more convincing placebo than a sugar pill. Some placebos are more "effective" than others. Dummy treatments that look as if they're an actual physical intervention (e.g. sticking a needle into somebody) tend to invoke the placebo effect more strongly than, for example, pills.

CriticalThanking

22nd February 2006, 02:19 PM

Imagine you folks are the passengers and crew of the ship, what will your answer be, one by one?
The village talks it over and realizes a leader willing to kill his own subjects if he does not hear what he wants regarding a logical fallacy is not fit to rule. Being educated in the west, the chieftan may or may not be smart enough to abdicate before the citizenry "have him replaced."

CT
[sharpening his virtual pitchfork ;) ]

Yuri Nalyssus

22nd February 2006, 03:20 PM

The one telling the chieftain the answer he wants to hear will be allowed to live, while the one giving the wrong answer will immediately in full view of but not hearing distance, be dispatched to the next world, with a clean slash on the neck by his burly assistant swinging a massive machete.
You can kill people by e-mail... Cool

Sorry, did that one before.

Yuri

Rolfe

22nd February 2006, 03:43 PM

I know he's already been asked if he's stopped beating his wife, answer yes or no, I just felt like repeating it.

Rolfe.

Jeff Corey

22nd February 2006, 04:07 PM

...The Spanish Inquisition: how very Buddhist. :nope:
NOBODY expects the...

Mojo

22nd February 2006, 04:11 PM

http://people.csail.mit.edu/paulfitz/spanish/tt16.jpg

yrreg

22nd February 2006, 04:13 PM

I have to look up your posts, but I am sure you expressed the view that the question: "Yes or No -- Acupuncture has effected a cure to a medical complaint," cannot be answered, owing to the need to examine every case ever past, present, and future, and to document them scientifically.

We are seemingly in a situation of ars longa vita brevis What do you say?

Ryokan, didn't you call me something, like worst skeptic ever?

I am looking for a way to raise the discourse to a higher level, like the character of evidence in medicine, which is not the same in generic view as the character of evidence in Buddhism?

What do you say, Ryokan and Mojo, can we raise the discourse to a higher level?

I seem to notice that there are posters here (don't ask me to name them, because that takes a lot of time and labor -- if you don't agree with me here; well, then don't agree) who might be afflicted with the disease of 'evidentiasis,' so that no evidence is ever appropriate and sufficient.

Anyway, good friends, Ryokan and Mojo, am I correct in my memory to have read in your posts somewhere that the question: "Yes or No -- Acupuncture has effected a cure in a medical complaint," cannot be answered in the circumstances of the real world; because we would have to examine -- as I already mentioned earlier here in this post -- every case past, present, and future of acupuncture intervention, and document every case scientifically (which science is an open-ended discipline where we have not yet had and never will ever have all the final definite answers to life and the universe).

I will think of a new thread on acupuncture where we can arrive at a more agreeable consensus or dissent, maybe some definite case of acupuncture intervention, and analyze placebo, anecdotal evidence, double-blind, chance event, etc.

In the meantime, rulers of nations and the United Nations also have to consider the billions who must do with non-evidenced based medicine, the kind perhaps definitively required by you two gentlemen -- even should you find yourselves in a remote village in Nepal where the only medicine practitioner is a traditional acupuncturist? and you are suffering from agonizing and incapacitating back pain, that you can't meditate at all with the traditional posture of meditation the Buddhist or the Yoga way, on your haunches.

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Bude.
http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/5260/putai26eo.gif

Ryokan

22nd February 2006, 04:26 PM

I know he's already been asked if he's stopped beating his wife, answer yes or no, I just felt like repeating it.

Rolfe.

It's quite obvious that Yrreg is not here to answer questions, he's here to conduct monologues.

Although it's equally obvious that I haven't really learned that lesson yet :boxedin:

Ryokan

22nd February 2006, 04:41 PM

Ryokan, didn't you call me something, like worst skeptic ever?

An exaggeration, of course. I'm sure there are worse, but I haven't encountered anyone lately. Especially one who labels himself sceptic, and a super-sceptic at that ;)

I am looking for a way to raise the discourse to a higher level, like the character of evidence in medicine, which is not the same in generic view as the character of evidence in Buddhism?

What do you say, Ryokan and Mojo, can we raise the discourse to a higher level?

That would be great. We've been trying since post 2.

I seem to notice that there are posters here (don't ask me to name them, because that takes a lot of time and labor -- if you don't agree with me here; well, then don't agree) who might be afflicted with the disease of 'evidentiasis,' so that no evidence is ever appropriate and sufficient.

Yeah, we've heard this one before. But that's what sceptics do, we look at evidence before we make up our mind. And that evidence has to be solid. You should know this, being a super-sceptic.

I will think of a new thread on acupuncture where we can arrive at a more agreeable consensus or dissent, maybe some definite case of acupuncture intervention, and analyze placebo, anecdotal evidence, double-blind, chance event, etc.

If you're up for it, that'd be great!

In the meantime, rulers of nations and the United Nations also have to consider the billions who must do with non-evidenced based medicine, the kind perhaps definitively required by you two gentlemen -- even should you find yourselves in a remote village in Nepal where the only medicine practitioner is a traditional acupuncturist? and you are suffering from agonizing and incapacitating back pain, that you can't meditate at all with the traditional posture of meditation the Buddhist or the Yoga way, on your haunches.

Well, if I was in that situation, it probably wouldn't hurt trying. But I'd prefer to use my energy to get myself to a real doctor.

Should the rulers of nations and the UN also consider bleeding as a cheap alternate treatment for the poor and desperate? Or voodoo? Or prayer? Or should they spend all their efforts at getting real medicine to people, medicine that has been proven to work?

Pragmatist

22nd February 2006, 05:01 PM

all and got the impression "that it is the common attitude of folks here:

However, good friend Pragmatist, if you have the opposite impression and even certainty "that it is not the common attitude of folks here, meaning:

Then I defer to your impression and even certainty, meaning I was wrong with my impression, that folks here have the common attitude that acupuncture has not effected a cure to a medical complaint, meaning I accept your sure conclusion from the posts in the two threads concerned, that acupuncture for the folks here has effected cures to medical complaints.

A skeptic wouldn't take anybody's word for it, he'd actually look at the evidence and make up his mind based on that evidence.

I didn't make any such conclusion as "that acupuncture for the folks here has effected cures to medical complaints", it's a classic logical fallacy on your part, the false dichotomy. On the remote possibility that you may genuinely not understand what logical fallacies are and that you are not simply being deliberately obnoxious, this web site: http://www.fallacyfiles.org/ will be extremely useful for you. In particular this page: http://www.fallacyfiles.org/eitheror.html (they call it the "false dilemma" fallacy).

Well, I am so glad that the folks here, who have contributed to the two threads in question about acupuncture, do maintain that acupuncture has effected cures to medical complaints, as testified to by Pragmatist on his reading of the posts in these two threads: Any value in Acupuncture? and Facts and Fictions in Acupuncture.

I didn't author the first thread, Any Value to Acupuncture; but I authored the second thread, the present one here, precisely to ask about the Facts and Fictions in Acupuncture.

And honestly I am so glad, good friend Pragmatist, that you have succeeded to show me the most important fact, namely, that for the folks here:

Acupuncture has effected a cure to a medical complaint.

Since you are such a polite person, and since you now know that I didn't say anything of the sort, I'm sure you will be more than happy to apologise for lying about what I said, now that you (hopefully) understand your fallacy.

So, we need not have to quarrel any further.

Who's quarreling? I asked you to present evidence to support your claims. You were unable to do so. That isn't quarrelling, that's skepticism.

Now, perhaps we should give our attention and concentration to find out very deeply and extensively whatever evidence we can unearth for those cases where acupuncture does effect cures to medical complaints, keeping in mind all the caveats against placebo, spontaneous remission, chance, and of course making sure that our examinations are conducted in a double-blind manner where double-blind control is possible.

Okay?

Nobody's stopping you. Feel free to present evidence of the above.

So, you see we have achieved a consensus that is most important to my education and enlightenment, namely:

That folks here have the attitude or certainty even, that acupuncture effects cures to medical complaints.

As I said, there is no such concensus. I never said nor implied anything of the sort. But again, as you claim to be a polite and courteous person who is concerned with honesty, integrity and civility, I am quite confident that you will apologise for misrepresenting my statements in such a manner, because to do so is surely most uncivil, wouldn't you agree?

Pragmatist

22nd February 2006, 05:07 PM

IRyokan, didn't you call me something, like worst skeptic ever?

Oh, that's awful, I agree, it's totally out of order and Ryokan should be soundly rebuked for making such a statement. Please let me do so.

Ryokan: This is really not acceptable, please desist from such behaviour in future, please stop calling Yrreg a skeptic... :mad:

Pragmatist

22nd February 2006, 05:11 PM

I seem to notice that there are posters here (don't ask me to name them, because that takes a lot of time and labor -- if you don't agree with me here; well, then don't agree) who might be afflicted with the disease of 'evidentiasis,' so that no evidence is ever appropriate and sufficient.

Permit me an observation of my own. There is at least one poster here (don't ask me to name him, because that takes a lot of time and labor -- if you don't agree with me here; well, then don't agree) who might be afflicted with the disease of "lackofevidentiasis", so that no evidence is ever presented for his claims. :)

Pragmatist

22nd February 2006, 05:25 PM

The Spanish Inquisition: how very Buddhist. :nope:

Oh, Yrreg is not a Buddhist. I'm sure he'd be most insulted to be called a Buddhist (not to mention what the Buddhists might think of it). Yrreg's opinions are not at all influenced by Buddhist ideas. I'm sure that Yrreg's opinions are his own, and since he thinks so highly of himself, I think you could almost call them his "Opus Dei".

yrreg

22nd February 2006, 05:25 PM

----------------
Originally Posted by yrreg :
In the meantime, rulers of nations and the United Nations also have to consider the billions who must do with non-evidenced based medicine, the kind perhaps definitively required by you two gentlemen -- even should you find yourselves in a remote village in Nepal where the only medicine practitioner is a traditional acupuncturist? and you are suffering from agonizing and incapacitating back pain, that you can't meditate at all with the traditional posture of meditation the Buddhist or the Yoga way, on your haunches.
-----------------

Well, if I was in that situation, it probably wouldn't hurt trying. But I'd prefer to use my energy to get myself to a real doctor.

Should the rulers of nations and the UN also consider bleeding as a cheap alternate treatment for the poor and desperate? Or voodoo? Or prayer? Or should they spend all their efforts at getting real medicine to people, medicine that has been proven to work?

I think, if you don't mind, that's not being realistic, comparing acupuncture to bleeding and voodoo, for even in the poorest nations today governments don't sanction bleeding or voodoo as cures for medical complaints. I presume you are being exorbitant with your analogies.

Even in the US and in your country and in every first world land, acupuncture is allowed, and there are doctors of conventional scientific training and successful practice who also do acupuncture, and endorse it -- just as they do with meditation, which you also seek to prove to be evidence-based.

Now, if you were in a remote monastery in Nepal and you can command a helicopter, then you can get to a medical practitioner who does conventional scientific medicine, but I can't imagine the natives having access to such medical personnel and facilities.

--------------------

After all these posts, I am still waiting for more people to come out like you have done, to say that it is impossible to answer yes or no to the question: Acupuncture has effected a cure for a medical complaint.

I seem to have seen Mojo also saying so, but that slip of light seems to have been closeted by his conditioned mind of the kind like Brodski's, insisting that the the question settled definitively already in the negative.

Remember Rumsfeld's defense: Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence; I am sure Rumsfeld got that from Carl Sagan.

Yrreg

Rolfe

22nd February 2006, 05:25 PM

I am sure you expressed the view that the question: "Yes or No -- Acupuncture has effected a cure to a medical complaint," cannot be answered, owing to the need to examine every case ever past, present, and future, and to document them scientifically.Incorrect.

The view has been expressed that your question can never be answered for any one specific case because of the impossibility of ever excluding coincidental recovery. In any one individual isolated case.

The matter can only be fruitfully addressed statistically, by attempting to ascertain if a group of people treated with real acupuncture fares significantly better overall than a comparable group of people who only thought they'd been treated with real acupuncture. Note the word significantly. Which has connotations regarding the size of the groups, and the way or ways in which the outcomes are measured.

The problem of figuring out how to fool the second group into believing they've had real acupuncture becomes the main consideration, and is the confounder in most of the studies. However, this does not mean that transcendental meditation on a single case to try to divine whether a causal relationship exists is a superior approach.

Rolfe.

yrreg

22nd February 2006, 06:06 PM

Jeff Corey

22nd February 2006, 06:07 PM

[QUOTE=yrreg;1463488]... should you find yourselves in a remote village in Nepal where the only medicine practitioner is a traditional acupuncturist? and you are suffering from agonizing and incapacitating back pain, that you can't meditate at all with the traditional posture of meditation the Buddhist or the Yoga way, on your haunches.
[QUOTE]
Yeah, reaaly. I would trust some quack who doesn't get the concept of "sterile needles" to stick germs, viruses and other contaminants into my imaginary meridians.
I got more advanced training in the Boys Scouts and am much more qualified to treat myself.
But for you, go ahead. Fester.

Pragmatist

22nd February 2006, 06:11 PM

I think, if you don't mind, that's not being realistic, comparing acupuncture to bleeding and voodoo, for even in the poorest nations today governments don't sanction bleeding or voodoo as cures for medical complaints. I presume you are being exorbitant with your analogies.

You presume wrong.

From a 2003 article here: http://www.wehaitians.com/july%202003%20news%20and%20analysis%20this%20month .html

The Catholic Church in the 1940's waged a campaign to eradicate Voodoo. Although unsuccessful, the religion was driven underground for years and disparaged by foreigners as a hodge-podge of beliefs.

In April, however, the Haitian government officially sanctioned it, allowing priests for the first time to legally perform marriages.

Many Voodoo practitioners have been wary of the step, fearful it was taken to woo them to the government of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, whose popularity is waning with hard times.

"Here we pray to everybody. Some pray to St. James, others to Ogou," said Jean Joseph, 45, a farmer who made the pilgrimage but prayed at the town's Catholic church. "You serve God or the Devil as you like."

Not far from the church where Joseph and other others prayed, men and women stripped down to their shorts, and plunged into a shallow mud basin. They emerged in a trance and said they were transformed.

"When I come out of the basin, I tremble. I feel the might of Ogou, who empowers me all year long," said Voodoo priest Harvey Dorvil, 31.

Around the basin, Voodoo priests, priestesses, and witchdoctors congregate, on the lookout for patients, whose ills they claim they can cure with spells and herbal remedies.

And bloodletting is not only supported by the US government, it's FDA approved...http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/2004/504_leech.html :)

O.K. I'm kidding with the latter - but I believe that bloodletting is still officially sanctioned as an "alternative" therapy in Bhutan, Malaysia and Mongolia at least, and possibly even in Islamic countries under Sharia law.

Now, if you were in a remote monastery in Nepal and you can command a helicopter, then you can get to a medical practitioner who does conventional scientific medicine, but I can't imagine the natives having access to such medical personnel and facilities.

That's a perfectly valid point. But it still doesn't imply that "traditional remedies" that have no established basis in evidence are actually efficacious for what they claim to do. Nor does it address the possible additional harm a quack "remedy" may cause...

Jeff Corey

22nd February 2006, 06:14 PM

yrreg

22nd February 2006, 06:41 PM

No. Coincidence means that there is no cause and effect relationship. So there is no connection in a causal sense between recovery and sticking with needles. No connection. Get it?

Well, I was telling Ryokan that I would like to think of a thread on acupuncture that is of a higher level of discourse. Maybe "coincidental recovery and acupuncture" can be a good thread for a higher level of discourse.

-----------------

About Buddhism, no I am no Buddhist, but I do pray with Buddhists and pray to Buddha even, it is very humanly comfortable.

But I took up exchanging views about Buddhism with the Buddhists here, because I thought and still think that they are not critical enough for being skeptics.

Ryokan calls himself here Resident Buddhist, so I call myself Resident Buddhist Critic, out of a naughty whim to call his attention and the attention of his fellow Buddists here.

So also I take up a posture of being sympathetic to acupuncture, to get some reactions from people here who seem to be on auto mode frantically aroused in hostile temper against any so much as a sneeze friendly to acupuncture.

You call that a troll? Maybe I deserve that name; but remember if you ask the authorities here they might just tell you that calling people a troll because they incite discussions is not really what a troll is genuinely about except in a pejorative sense.

In fact, trolls are no longer looked upon with taboo; because if not for trolls people could continue to pursue their secure attitudes with absolute certainty that they possess the final, definitive, and complete knowledge and wisdom of science.

Yes, I am here for fun; and if the authorities should scrutinize my posts they might oust me right away, or continue to extend the welcome mat to me.

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Bude.
http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/5260/putai26eo.gif

Jeff Corey

22nd February 2006, 06:46 PM

Well, I was telling Ryokan that I would like to think of a thread on acupuncture that is of a higher level of discourse. Maybe "coincidental recovery and acupuncture" can be a good thread for a higher level of discourse...
You don't seem to be hacking it at this level, why aspire to fail at higher levels too?
You know, little steps for little feet.

Complexity

22nd February 2006, 06:51 PM

Baby steps...

:mrocks

Pragmatist

22nd February 2006, 07:34 PM

But I took up exchanging views about Buddhism with the Buddhists here, because I thought and still think that they are not critical enough for being skeptics.

Ryokan calls himself here Resident Buddhist, so I call myself Resident Buddhist Critic, out of a naughty whim to call his attention and the attention of his fellow Buddists here.

So also I take up a posture of being sympathetic to acupuncture, to get some reactions from people here who seem to be on auto mode frantically aroused in hostile temper against any so much as a sneeze friendly to acupuncture.

You call that a troll? Maybe I deserve that name; but remember if you ask the authorities here they might just tell you that calling people a troll because they incite discussions is not really what a troll is genuinely about except in a pejorative sense.

In fact, trolls are no longer looked upon with taboo; because if not for trolls people could continue to pursue their secure attitudes with absolute certainty that they possess the final, definitive, and complete knowledge and wisdom of science.

Yes, I am here for fun; and if the authorities should scrutinize my posts they might oust me right away, or continue to extend the welcome mat to me.

There are many definitions of "troll", but the basic idea is someone who is trying to evoke reactions from people, usually in a dishonest way. It also refers to people who try to use others to play their "games" or as subjects for their "experiments" and who claim that they are being reactionary just for fun. Does that ring any bells?

Here is one of the better troll definition pages: http://www.themartialist.com/pecom/fieldguidetotrolls.htm

The Contrarian Troll. A sophisticated breed, Contrarian Trolls frequent boards whose predominant opinions are contrary to their own. A forum dominated by those who support firearms and knife rights, for example, will invariably be visited by Contrarian Trolls espousing their beliefs in the benefits of gun control. It is important to distinguish between dissenters and actual Contrarian Trolls, however; the Contrarian is not categorized as a troll because of his or her dissenting opinions, but due to the manner in which he or she behaves:

– Contrarian Warning Sign Number One: The most important indicator of a poster's Contrarian Troll status is his constant use of subtle and not-so-subtle insults, a technique intended to make people angry. Contrarians will resist the urge to be insulting at first, but as their post count increases, they become more and more abusive of those with whom they disagree. Most often they initiate the insults in the course of what has been a civil, if heated, debate to that point.

– Contrarian Warning Sign Number Two: Constant references to the forum membership as monolithic. "You guys are all just [descriptor]." "You're a lynch mob." "You all just want to ridicule anyone who disagrees with you."

– Contrarian Warning Sign Number Three: Intellectual dishonesty. This is only a mild indicator that is not limited to trolls, but Contrarians display it to a high degree. They will lie about things they've said, pull posts out of context in a manner that changes their meanings significantly, and generally ignore any points for which they have no ready answers.

– Contrarian Warning Sign Number Four: Accusing the accusers. When confronted with their trolling, trolls immediately respond that it is the accusers who are trolls (see Natural Predators below). Often the Contrarian will single out his most vocal opponent and claim that while he can respect his other opponents, this one in particular is beneath his notice.

– Contrarian Warning Sign Number Five: Attempts to condescend. Pursued by Troll Bashers (see Natural Predators below), the Contrarian will seek refuge in condescending remarks that repeatedly scorn his or her critics as beneath notice – all the while continuing to respond to them.

– Contrarian Warning Sign Number Six: One distinctive mark of Contrarian Trolls is that every thread in which they dissent quickly devolves into a debate about who is trolling whom. In the course of such a debate the Contrarian will display many of the other Warning Signs mentioned above.

Contrarian warning sign behaviors may be shared by other breeds.

or

The Sophist Troll. Sophist Trolls, or "philotrolls," fancy themselves Enlightened Philosophers or Learned Experts of the highest order. Often well educated, Philotrolls are capable of speaking intelligently on a number of topics, and when the spirit moves them they can be worthwhile forum participants. Unfortunately, Sophist Trolls are an extremely hostile and intolerant species.

When confronted by opinions with which they do not agree – particularly when they do not see any means of successfully arguing their contrary views – Sophists resort (repeatedly) to a variety of intellectually dishonest tactics. Most often, this is characterized by an overly snide, condescending, patronizing attitude. Philotrolls consider anyone with whom they do not agree to be "immature," and are fond of quoting that old saw that "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing."

When cornered they are quick to resort to personal attacks. A philotroll's bag of rhetorical tricks includes a variety of transparent ploys, such as willfully misinterpreting the opponent's words, committing Straw Man fallacies, accusing his or her opponents of engaging in the very tactics used by the philotroll, and so forth.

When engaging in their sophistry, philotrolls are among the most hypocritical and aggravating of trollkind.

or

The Affected Profundity Troll. A mutant subspecies of Sophist Trolls, Affected Profundity Trolls post endless pages of pretentious drivel that is intended to appear wise, but which generally makes little sense (if any). Affected Profundity Trolls enjoy asking themselves questions, sometimes answering them and sometimes leaving them hanging, for they believe this looks intelligent and lends an aura of mystery to their incoherent ramblings. Affected Profundity Trolls aspire to become Sophist Trolls, but lack the intelligence necessary to make the leap.

Although I must admit I am rather partial to this description from: http://www.jayallen.org/journey/2004/05/from_troll_to_doppelganger

There are some people in this world we find annoying. There are others who we find distasteful. There are still others who we find repugnant.

Beyond that, there is the troll.

Not the fairy tale type of troll mind you. Those at least have a touch of culture and class, albeit trollish class. No, we're talking an internet troll.

Trolls are as old as the internet. For those who are lucky enough to have never run across one, they are little people who seem to have nothing better to do than argue ceaselessly and illogically about the topic at hand. They will do anything to engage anyone in their abyss of words for it is the only attention they really ever receive. Because of this, trolls are usually very bitter and angry and have little self-respect.

They also have very small genitals which doesn't help matters...

:D

Mojo

23rd February 2006, 01:11 AM

Mojo

23rd February 2006, 01:17 AM

Anyway, good friends, Ryokan and Mojo...And don't call me "friend." I have standards, and I certainly don't consider people who attempt to misrepresent me (as you have on more than one occasion) to be "friends".

Mojo

23rd February 2006, 01:23 AM

CriticalThanking

23rd February 2006, 04:05 AM

"Bloodletting" is still a valuable therapy for hemochromatosis - the bodies inability to regulate iron in the blood. It just happens to be done in a manner we call "giving blood" as opposed to slicing a vein and letting it dribble into a bowl.

My co-worker has to go bleed weekly until his iron levels come down. Then he can do so only a few times a year... for the rest of his life. And sadly, the blood is considered useless for donation. I think there is another JREF thread about that.

CT

Rolfe

23rd February 2006, 04:42 AM

Coincidental recovery, that is one concept that maybe you can explain to the education of less learned and perceptive souls here.

It is recovery, isn't it? in the present context, owing to some connection with acupuncture?

Then secondly it is coincidental.

I would welcome your explanation of coincidental, as in a recovery that is coincidental, understanding: owiig to some connection with acupuncture.

YrregThis is really very simple. Suppose you catch a cold. You will not suffer from it forever, even if you do nothing it will go away. So, if you choose to take some treatment, acupuncture or anything else, and your cold goes away, can you say that the treatment cured your cold?

The only way you can tell whether a treatment influences the course of a cold is to take two groups of people, all of whom have colds, and give one half of the group the treatment you want to test. You let the other half believe they're getting the treatment, but actually they aren't. You measure how long it takes every patient to get better. Some will get better more quckly than others. Only by comparing the two groups and seeing whether the half who had the real treatment did objectively better than the half who only thought they were getting the treatment, can you tell whether the treatment itself actually influenced the outcome.

A cold is an easy one because we know they always get better. But what about conditions that only sometimes get better on their own? In this case it is even more important to know what's going on, by doing such a study. Otherwise you get to the stage of claiming every recovery as a success or the treatment, when it may be that these people would have got better anyway.I would welcome your explanation of coincidental, as in a recovery that is coincidental, understanding: owiig to some connection with acupuncture.This sounds as if you are perhaps wanting to have it both ways. I have heard some homoeopaths claim that if a patient gets better while they were being treated with homoeopathy, then that is unarguably a "cure" to be credited to homoeopathy. Even if it is only someone with a cold which has run its normal course. They totally reject the logic that if a comparable group of people who didn't get the treatment recover on average just as often or just as frequently as the treated group, this indicates that the treatment is in fact doing nothing.

This is very good for business. You simply acquire patients who have illnesses that will get better, or might get better, and when they get better, you claim a cure. Is it honest? In what way can you claim a cure if in fact a patient in the untreated group has exactly the same probability of recovering as a patient who is treated?

Rolfe.

yrreg

23rd February 2006, 03:10 PM

The earlier thread started by me has become too emotional.

So I have decided to start a new thread with the same title but calling it "Facts and Fictions in Acupuncture 2: pros and cons," i.e., of acupuncture.

As before I will try to concentrate on the big picture and draft the short statement in regard to acupuncture.

Where is my sympathy?

First and foremost for the facts, then trying to understand the fictions.

As I proceed I might have to change my orientation and approach.

In the previous thread, the oppositions and objections to acupuncture were to my impression overwhelmingly emotional, although there were mentions of placebo, chance event, spontaneous remissions, coincidental recovery, double-blind studies, etc., which are what I might call literal instances of academic attitude.

As before I will try to maintain an academic orientation and approach in the present thread, but not without humor; for I believe that in humor there is more possibility and probability to seeing the better picture and truer one in every issue, than without.

Even though posters here might not be happy with me, yet I believe that acupuncture, the Facts and Fictions 2: pros and cons, can be a very useful discussion for members of this forum who sincerely want to know the facts and fictions, and specially visitors, for their own education and adoption or rejection of acupuncture in their personal health and medical concerns.

Please proceed to next post for a tentative idea of how to find the facts in acupuncture.

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Bude.
http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/5260/putai26eo.gif

drkitten

23rd February 2006, 03:30 PM

In the previous thread, the oppositions and objections to acupuncture were to my impression overwhelmingly emotional, although there were mentions of placebo, chance event, spontaneous remissions, coincidental recovery, double-blind studies, etc., which are what I might call literal instances of academic attitude.

I'm not sure what your issue was with the previous thread. Although I didn't participate, I just read it (well, skimmed it), and it was a reasonably good explanations of some of the necessary confounds in any study of proposed medical treatments. Nothing about "coincidental recovery," for example, applies strictly to acupuncture -- it must be taken into account in any halfway-competent analysis of any new treatment method.

Suppose, for example, that I claim that a particular chronic disease -- let's say, ulcers -- can be treated by a novel course of antibiotics. So to test this, I wll give a group of some patients this treatment and a group of other patients a placebo (or another, recognized, treatment).

Now we know that not everyone will respond to treatment in the same way. So rather than focusing on individual cases, I'll look at the group average. If, on average, the experimental groups gets better quicker, then I know that, in fact, ulcers can be successfully treated with antibiotics.

As it happens, this isn't a hypothetical situation at all. It actually happened in the 1980s, and it's resulted in a breakthrough in ulcer treatment.

Now, if you want to claim that, for example, acupuncture can also treat ulcers, we can do the same type of experiment. Unfortunately, the experiments that have been tried on acupuncture have been uniformly negative....

Rolfe

23rd February 2006, 03:52 PM

I think Yrreg is just too tied in knots by the drubbing he was getting in the other thread, and has moved to this one in the hope of wiping away all the posts that demonstrated just how clearly he wasn't thinking.

Oh well, the homoeopaths do exactly the same thing.

Badly Shaved Monkey had an interesting report about a physiotherapy treatment that was being recommended purely on genuinely-believed anecdotal evidence. The problem was that the range of recovery times for the injury in question was fairly wide, and while the average might be a month, some patients were better in two weeks even if nothing was done. What was happening was that whenever a patient who was receiving the physiotherapy was one of those with a short recovery, lights went on in people's brains, and the belief that the treatment was effective was reinforced. It took a properly controlled study to show that the range of recovery times was the same whether the patients were treated or not. If you were going to recover in two weeks, you would. Physiotherapy or none.

Yrreg seems to want to look for the two-week recoveries where acupuncture was used, and steadfastly refuse to consider that there might be just as many two-week recoveries in patients not treated with acupuncture.

Rolfe.

yrreg

23rd February 2006, 04:08 PM

I just entered acupuncture into Google web search and it returned the following statistics (followed by the listing of 9,180,000 links):

Web Results 1 - 100 of about 9,180,000 for acupuncture [definition]. (0.13 seconds)

So, even at the risk of incurring the accusation of Argumentum ad Googlum, we can say that acupuncture commands the interest and attention of many people.

Would it be all right now to seek some authoritative statement about this subject, acupuncture; I mean we want to read something that is, shall we say, supposed to tell us what is good and what is bad to life and health from someone or some agency having the responsibility to tell us so.

Who or what in society is tasked to tell us when we are in a situation of need to know some authoritative statement about what is good or bad to our life preservation and our health maintenance, in the present context about acupuncture?

Would it be logical and sensible to look up government offices?

Then if we can't trust their statements, look up critiques of these statements.

But we have got to make sure that the government people and agencies we resort to belong to democratic regimes which uphold free inquiry and free speech in their citizenries.

I will now look up such government agencies and sources in English speaking countries, because I am literate in English, not because I don't trust governments of democratic countries with free inquiry and free speech, of peoples speaking German or Dutch or French or Spanish or Italian.

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Bude.
http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/5260/putai26eo.gif

Rolfe

23rd February 2006, 04:10 PM

I was obviously talking to the hand. I will desist.

Rolfe.

Rolfe

23rd February 2006, 05:06 PM

Oh, I'm a glutton for punishment.

Yrreg, why do you think the best course is to seek authorities on whom to rely?

What would be your criteria regarding whom to accept as an authority? Surely, that they have reliable information as to whether acupuncture works or not. In that case, where will they have acquired that information? From looking at the results of properly-controlled trials, of course! Otherwise they are merely speculating, and have no authority.

So, understanding that, what purpose might it serve to seek such authorities? Having found a possible authority, the first thing one would be required to do would be to test his authority by examining the strength of the evidence on which he was relying. In other words, look at the reports of controlled trials, and decide whether you agreed with his assessment.

Why not just cut out the middle-man?

In fact there are a handful of publications which (at least at first sight) appear to satisfy the criteria of being properly-controlled studies which show a positive effect for acupuncture. If you had been searching seriously for information, rather than just googling randomly to fuel a rather pointless conversation, you would have found them by now.

As a little hint, I will mention post-operative nausea, and arthritis of the knee. Finding the relevant studies is left as an exercise for Yrreg.

Then we might look at the details, and examine whether in fact there might have been flaws in the studies, and even discuss the concept of statistical flukes.

After that, if we ever get that far, we might even introduce the concept of the requirement for replication.

On the other hand we could just talk aimlessly, without finding out anything. Guess which I think Yrreg is going to do?

Rolfe.

Pragmatist

23rd February 2006, 05:21 PM

What would be your criteria regarding whom to accept as an authority?

I suspect the real answer is that someone who agrees with Yrreg is an "authority" and anyone who doesn't, isn't! :D

I don't see any need for a new thread on the same subject, can we have a mod ruling on whether this should be merged with the other, please?

Pragmatist

23rd February 2006, 05:41 PM

I guess the fact that Yrreg appears to have abandoned this thread in favour of another identical one means that he does not intend to show evidence of his various claims in this one.

And I also note that given that Yrreg claims to be extremely concerned about civility and decent behaviour, it is somewhat telling that he doesn't see fit to apologise for misrepresenting what I, Mojo and others on here have posted. I guess we can take that as evidence of just how decent and civil Yrreg really is, or not.

...with emphasis on the not... :rolleyes:

yrreg

24th February 2006, 03:59 AM

Would it be all right now to seek some authoritative statement about this subject, acupuncture; I mean we want to read something that is, shall we say, supposed to tell us what is good and what is bad to life and health from someone or some agency having the responsibility to tell us so.

Who or what in society is tasked to tell us when we are in a situation of need to know some authoritative statement about what is good or bad to our life preservation and our health maintenance, in the present context about acupuncture?

Would it be logical and sensible to look up government offices?

Then if we can't trust their statements, look up critiques of these statements.

But we have got to make sure that the government people and agencies we resort to belong to democratic regimes which uphold free inquiry and free speech in their citizenries.

I will now look up such government agencies and sources in English speaking countries, because I am literate in English, not because I don't trust governments of democratic countries with free inquiry and free speech, of peoples speaking German or Dutch or French or Spanish or Italian.

I found the UK Government giving acupuncture free to UK citizens.

Is complementary therapy available on the NHS?
http://www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk/chq.asp?Classid=17&Articleid=911

Complementary therapy is gradually becoming more widely available on the NHS. At the moment, the kind of complementary treatment you can access depends somewhat on where you live in England. However, complementary therapies are being introduced in more healthcare settings, including hospitals, GP surgeries and community clinics. Ask your GP if you’re not sure what’s available in your area.

There are five NHS homeopathic hospitals in the UK. They are located in Bristol, Glasgow, Liverpool, London and Tunbridge Wells, Kent. Most hospital clinics offer some form of complementary therapy. Acupuncture is often used in pain clinics, and aromatherapy and massage may be used in the treatment of cancer. Osteopathy and chiropractic are commonly used to treat bone and joint problems such as back pain, often alongside physiotherapy and heat treatment.

Lots of GPs have completed further training in complementary therapies, and may be able to provide treatments such as acupuncture, homeopathy and osteopathy directly from the surgery. Other GP surgeries can refer you to complementary therapists in the area. If you contact a therapist yourself for private treatment, make sure they are fully qualified and an accredited member of the appropriate organisation, (for example, the British Acupuncture Council).

16/11/2005 13:28:45

What is the NHS or National Health Service in the United Kingdom?

History of the NHS
http://www.nhs.uk/england/aboutTheNHS/history/default.cmsx

The National Health Service or NHS as it is more commonly known, was set up on the 5th July 1948 to provide healthcare for all citizens, based on need, not the ability to pay.

The NHS is funded by the taxpayer and managed by the Department of Health, which sets overall policy on health issues. It is the responsibility of the Department of Health to provide health services to the general public through the NHS.

It was launched as a single organisation based around 14 regional hospital boards. This new NHS was originally split into three parts:

1. hospital services
2. family doctors, dentists, opticians and pharmacists
3. local authority health services, including community nursing and health visiting

So, it is a fact in UK that the government approves of acupuncture and dispenses it freely to the citizens.

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Bude.
http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/5260/putai26eo.gif

Rolfe

24th February 2006, 04:04 AM

So? We knew this. There are political reasons. This is not evidence of efficacy.

Rolfe.

brodski

24th February 2006, 04:23 AM

I found the UK Government giving acupuncture free to UK citizens.

What is the NHS or National Health Service in the United Kingdom?

So, it is a fact in UK that the government approves of acupuncture and dispenses it freely to the citizens.

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Bude.http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/5260/putai26eo.gif
The UK government supports homeopathy far more than it supports acupuncture, Does that therefore mean that homeopathy is more effective than acupuncture?
As Rolfe pointed out, the provision of CAM on the NHS is down to political, rather than medical, reasons. What's more, CAM treatments in the UK are specifically excluded of the requirement to prove themselves effective before being offered on the NHS.
Every new "conventional" treatment must be evaluated by the UK's National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE). For some reasons proponents of "CAM" do not seem to want their treatments to be examined as robustly as other treatments, and have strongly resisted calls for CAM treatments to be evaluated by NICE prior to their use by the NHS, perhaps you could offer an explanation as to why?
So please, Yrreg, answer the questions.
1)Does the fact that the UK government supports homeopathy more than acupuncture make homeopathy more effective than acupuncture? Yes/no .
2) Can you give a convincing reason why those that advocate CAM treatments, resist calls for those treatments to be proven effective?

yrreg

24th February 2006, 06:45 AM

I am producing here the approval of acupuncture by the British Medical Association.

Acupuncture wins BMA approval - British Medical Association - News
British Medical Journal, July 1, 2000 by Mark Silvert
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0999/is_7252_321/ai_63713358

Acupuncture should become more widely available on the NHS and family doctors should be trained in some of its techniques, a BMA inquiry has concluded. The therapy has proved effective in treating back and dental pain, nausea and vomiting, and migraine, the BMA's Board of Science and Education has found after a two year study.

Acupuncture is one of the most frequently requested of the complementary therapies. Up to five million people may have consulted a therapist specialising in complementary or alternative medicine in the past year, the report says.

Welcoming the report, Dr Richard Halvorsen, a GP and press officer for the British Medical Acupuncture Society, said: "It indicates a complete change in the way that the medical establishment views complementary therapies." The study was commissioned in 1998 to "investigate the scientific basis and efficacy of acupuncture and the quality of training and standards of competence in its practitioners." It reviewed literature and current research on acupuncture and examined safety aspects, including adverse effects.

Complication rates associated with acupuncture are "relatively low," the study found. They generally fall into one of three categories: physical injuries, infections, and other adverse reactions. Many of the physical injuries could be avoided by ensuring that acupuncturists are fully trained in anatomy and physiology, with particular emphasis on teaching the location and depth of major organs. Inadequate or improper sterilisation techniques constitute a serious risk factor for infections, and this is recognised by professional acupuncture bodies and reflected in their codes of practice, states the report.

Transmission of infections can be avoided if all practitioners use only sterile disposable needles rather than reusable needles, which need sterilisation. Other adverse reactions include more minor events such as bleeding on withdrawal of the needle, bruising, and drowsiness. A survey of UK family doctors carried out as part of the study showed that nearly half had arranged acupuncture for patients and 58% had referred patients for some form of complementary or alternative medicine. The BMA is calling for a national register of all acupuncturists who are medically or non-medically qualified and for a national surveillance system to report adverse events.

Dr Vivian Nathanson, head of health policy at the BMA, said: "We need to see more high quality research into the effectiveness of acupuncture. Greater use of acupuncture would save the NHS millions of pounds each year." However, she added that a consensus needed to be built on the minimum standards of training required for all potential acupuncture practitioners.

The BMA hopes that the National Institute for Clinical Excellence will consider the value of acupuncture as a next step and produce guidance for the NHS.

It is a fact that the British Medical Association of doctors approves the use of acupuncture for medical complaints.

Readers who wish to read critiques adverse to the British government's approval and utilization of acupuncture for its citizens, and also the British Medical Association's approval and employment as well, can look up the posts of fellow forum members here contributing to this thread.

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Bude.
http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/5260/putai26eo.gif

brodski

24th February 2006, 07:00 AM

I am producing here the approval of acupuncture by the British Medical Association.

It is a fact that the British Medical Association of doctors approves the use of acupuncture for medical complaints.

Readers who wish to read critiques adverse to the British government's approval and utilization of acupuncture for its citizens, and also the British Medical Association's approval and employment as well, can look up the posts of fellow forum members here contributing to this thread.

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Bude.http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/5260/putai26eo.gif
1)Does the fact that the UK government supports homeopathy more than acupuncture make homeopathy more effective than acupuncture? Yes/no . </p>2) Can you give a convincing reason why those that advocate CAM treatments, resist calls for those treatments to be proven effective?</p>

NeilC

24th February 2006, 07:00 AM

Their decision appears not be be based on any new evidence that it actually works but merely on the basis that it's safe and that lots of doctors say they want to either do it or learn about it.

This seems to have annoyed the other 50% who want an evidence based approach. See here for some discussions on the BMJ website:
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/eletters/321/7252/11/b#8760

I'm hoping there is something to acupuncture but I want to see some proper evidence. It is lacking at the moment.

BTW, off topic - how did buddha get fat if he managed to free himself from earthly desires such as the the urge to eat more food than is needed?

Asolepius

24th February 2006, 07:44 AM

The UK government supports homeopathy far more than it supports acupuncture, Does that therefore mean that homeopathy is more effective than acupuncture?
As Rolfe pointed out, the provision of CAM on the NHS is down to political, rather than medical, reasons. What's more, CAM treatments in the UK are specifically excluded of the requirement to prove themselves effective before being offered on the NHS.
Every new "conventional" treatment must be evaluated by the UK's National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE). For some reasons proponents of "CAM" do not seem to want their treatments to be examined as robustly as other treatments, and have strongly resisted calls for CAM treatments to be evaluated by NICE prior to their use by the NHS, perhaps you could offer an explanation as to why?
So please, Yrreg, answer the questions.
1)Does the fact that the UK government supports homeopathy more than acupuncture make homeopathy more effective than acupuncture? Yes/no .
2) Can you give a convincing reason why those that advocate CAM treatments, resist calls for those treatments to be proven effective?

Just to be nit-picking, NICE does not have to approve all new conventional treatments. In fact it doesn't `approve' anything, it only makes recommendations on cost-effectiveness, and issues practice guidelines. These functions are after drugs (if we are talking about drugs) get their marketing authorisation from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). NICE is not a regulatory body, its role is advisory only, but of course the health authorities are pretty much expected to follow its advice. However note that the advice is not adhered to by the letter, hence the `postcode' lotteries. The other key point is that NICE is reactive. It can't select treatments for appraisal of cost-effectiveness, it has to be asked, and requests are channelled through the Department for Health. Despite agreeing to the recommendations of the House of Lords Select Committee Report 2000, the government has persistently stonewalled requests to have any CAMs appraised, for as you say totally political reasons. I happen to know that NICE is very keen to look at CAM, but can't take the initiative. Part of the reason is its very limited funding, which has to be tightly targeted to treatments where there are big cost issues. Another problem is that the NHS does not track the cost of CAM so nobody knows how much is spent - thus it's easy to side-step questions about cost-effectiveness.

brodski

24th February 2006, 08:05 AM

Just to be nit-picking.
Thanks for correcting me, that's one of the things I love about this place, there is always someone with detailed knowledge who is willing to share it. :)
Anyway, dispute my total misunderstanding of the position of NICE within the chain of healthcare choices within the NHS, my central points still stand, CAM is given an easy ride by the government and those that favour acupuncture as a viable treatment on eth NHS are resistant to an robust examination of it's efficacy and cost effectiveness by those most able to make this judgment,

Rolfe

24th February 2006, 08:08 AM

Isn't it "NICE" the way Yrreg persistently ignores the advice to look for actual evidence, and goes trawling for biassed reports that say what he wants to hear?

Any progress on finding those papers I mentioned, Yrreg?

(I think he's got me on ignore.)

Rolfe.

Mashuna

24th February 2006, 08:36 AM

A question for Rolfe, this is a safety concern of acupuncture that has recently been brought to my attention (by a comedy show, admittedly).

I'm addressing it to Rolfe in her capacity as a voodoo vet practitioner.

As I understand it, the principle of voodoo it to insert needles into a likeness of the victim in order to stimulate a (painful) response. My assumption is that the better the resemblence to the victim, the more likely the respose (possibly an increased magnitude, I'm not sure of the details).

What then, is the implication of acupuncture for someone who has an identical twin? Has research addressed this, or have there just been a number of mysterous injuries, maybe even fatalities, as a result of overlapping made up systems?

I think we need to be told.

Mojo

24th February 2006, 08:38 AM

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=1449342#post1449342

Mashuna

24th February 2006, 08:45 AM

Ah - it's an old(ish) joke then. I heard it on 'Mock the Week', must be doing the comedy rounds :)

brodski

24th February 2006, 08:45 AM

brodski

24th February 2006, 08:51 AM

Ryokan

24th February 2006, 09:03 AM

BTW, off topic - how did buddha get fat if he managed to free himself from earthly desires such as the the urge to eat more food than is needed?

Common misunderstanding. The fat Buddha is not Gautama Buddha.

See here. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotei)

ruach1

24th February 2006, 09:06 AM

I too have researched the efficacy of acupuncture on the web. I have gone to the following sites: British Medical Journal, The Cleveland Clinic, JAMA, NCAM, NIH, WHO, Pubmed, and The Mayo Clinic.

Each of these sites has something positive to say about acupuncture in various capacities. However, not one tackles the issue behind the issue. And you all know what that is: the existence of the ever so ellusive (delusive ?) qi/chi energy. Not one of the sites scientifically states that the functioning principle of acupuncture (qi/chi energy) is a scientific/medical fact. And until some type of empirical evidence for qi/chi is found, the credibility for acupuncture will always be in question.

Then again, maybe all the positive things about acupuncture may give the idea/reality of qi/chi energy a boost in the credibility and authenticity department. Then again maybe not.

Either way, the existence of qi/chi energy seems to be the debate--not the efficacy of acupuncture as a viable and credible mode of health and healing.

24th February 2006, 02:00 PM

So, even at the risk of incurring the accusation of Argumentum ad Googlum, we can say that acupuncture commands the interest and attention of many people.

Why does this matter?

brodski

24th February 2006, 02:14 PM

Why does this matter? Because, despite the T&TTT, it shows mas existing since long?

Oh sorry, got my trolls mixed up there for a moment. :p

Yuri Nalyssus

25th February 2006, 04:13 PM

The earlier thread started by me has become too emotional.
Does anyone one know how to do a smiley with a really big yawn and a sort-of, "oh gosh, I've heard all this before" expression?

Yuri

yrreg

26th February 2006, 04:50 PM

I have been reading about the history of acupuncture in the US.

I think the following texts from www.emedicinehealth.com might be useful for people who are interested to know briefly the major steps taken by the US Government in regard to the practice of 'medical' acupuncture and its patronage by the US public.

Medical Acupuncture: History http://www.emedicinehealth.com/articles/11678-2.asp

In the United States, accounts of acupuncture began to appear in the medical literature in the mid-1800s. In fact, Sir William Osler included a section on the use of acupuncture for the treatment of "lumbago and sciatica" in his respected textbook The Principles and Practice of Medicine from 1892 through its final edition in 1947. The 1901 edition of Gray's Anatomy included this statement: "The sciatic nerve has been acupunctured for the relief of sciatica."

A turning point in the introduction of acupuncture in the United States came in 1971. James Reston, a reporter for The New York Times, was in Beijing to report on a ping-pong match between China and the United States. While there, he developed acute appendicitis and required an emergency appendectomy. The report of his firsthand experience with acupuncture for the management of his post-operative pain was published on the front page of The New York Times. This sparked an intense interest in acupuncture by the public. Several months later, a report favorable to acupuncture was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

In 1987, a major step forward in the acceptance of acupuncture by Western Medicine occurred with the founding of the American Academy of Medical Acupuncture. The AAMA became the sole physician-based acupuncture society in North America.

It is estimated that, by 1991, 8,000 nonphysicians and 1,500 physicians were practicing acupuncture in the United States. An article, published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine in 1993 by David Eisenberg, MD, and colleagues reported that $14 billion were spent by Americans in 1990 on "alternative therapies." It was becoming apparent that the public was embracing complementary medicine.

In 1992 the Office of Alternative Medicine was created within the National Institutes of Health. In 1997, the office convened a Consensus Development Conference that resulted in the publication of a Consensus Statement affirming the benefit of acupuncture for certain medical conditions. These conditions included post-operative and chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting, post-operative dental pain, substance addiction, stroke rehabilitation, headaches, menstrual cramps, tennis elbow, fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis, low back pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, and asthma.

A significant development in the acceptance of acupuncture in the United States occurred in 1996, when the US Food and Drug Administration reclassified acupuncture needles from the Class III, or "investigational" category that they had been in, to Class IIb, the category that means "safe, effective, but with special restrictions."

In 1998, the Office of Alternative Medicine was expanded to become the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

Another first in Medical Acupuncture occurred in April of 2000, with the establishment of the American Board of Medical Acupuncture. The board offered its first certifying examination for physicians in October 2000, allowing physicians the opportunity to demonstrate proof of proficiency in the specialty of medical acupuncture. Physicians who pass the ABMA certifying examination are referred to as Diplomates of the American Board of Medical Acupuncture (DABMA) and are considered board certified in medical acupuncture.

What is the www.emedicinehealth.com?

About Us
http://www.emedicinehealth.com/common/about_us-1.asp

Overview: Launched in 1996, www.eMedicine.com comprises the largest and most current Clinical Knowledge Base available to physicians and other healthcare professionals. eMedicine's subscription site for institutions is www.iMedicine.com. Nearly 10,000 physician authors and editors contribute to the eMedicine Clinical Knowledge Base, which contains articles on 7,000 diseases and disorders. The evidence-based content, updated regularly, provides the latest practice guidelines in 59 medical specialties. eMedicine's professional content undergoes 4 levels of physician peer review plus an additional review by a PharmD prior to publication.

And here is what it says about medicine which I find most useful to anyone who is interested in knowing the pros and cons of a particular medical practice.

http://www.emedicinehealth.com/articles/11678-2.asp

Medicine is a constantly changing science, and clearly established therapies are not always available for every condition. New research findings necessitate continual changes in drug and treatment therapies. The authors, editors, and publisher of this journal have used reasonable efforts to provide up-to-date, accurate information that is within generally accepted medical standards at the time of publication. However, as medical science is ever evolving, and human error is always possible, the authors, editors, and publisher (or any other involved party) do not guarantee total accuracy or comprehensiveness of the information in this article, nor are they responsible for omissions, errors, or the results of using this information. The reader should confirm the accuracy of the information in this article from other sources. In particular, all drug doses, indications, and contraindications should be confirmed in package inserts. FULL DISCLAIMER

Readers who wish to know the critiques against acupuncture can read the posts contributed by fellow members of this forum in this thread, and also earlier threads on acupuncture; and they can use the search function to look up other materials here on acupuncture.

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Bude.
http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/5090/twobudes5rb.gif

yrreg

1st March 2006, 04:40 PM

I am starting another thread on acupuncture, with the same title but accompanied with a different subtitle, namely: "Facts and Fictions in Acupuncture 3: the facts and the explanations."

I will just here post the document from the US government approving the use of acupuncture for medical complaints. I had wanted to also produce here the authorities of other English speaking countries like Australia, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand, Ireland, but the authorities of the UK and the USA are sufficient for the purpose of showing that acupuncture is an approved treatment for medical complaints.

--------------------

Here is the most complete yet concise text giving Americans the authority of the US Department of Health on its approval of acupuncture, through its daughter agency, the National Institutes of Health.

http://consensus.nih.gov/1997/1997Ac...ure107html.htm

Acupuncture
National Institutes of Health
Consensus Development Conference Statement
November 3-5, 1997

NIH Consensus statements and State-of-the-Science statements (formerly known as technology assessment statements) are prepared by a nonadvocate, non-Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) panels, based on (1) presentations by investigators working in areas relevant to the consensus questions during a 2-day public session; (2) questions and statements from conference attendees during open discussion periods that are part of the public session; and (3) closed deliberations by the panel during the remainder of the second day and morning of the third. This statement is an independent report of the panel and is not a policy statement of the NIH or the Federal Government.

<snip>

Conclusions.
Acupuncture as a therapeutic intervention is widely practiced in the United States. While there have been many studies of its potential usefulness, many of these studies provide equivocal results because of design, sample size, and other factors. The issue is further complicated by inherent difficulties in the use of appropriate controls, such as placebos and sham acupuncture groups. However, promising results have emerged, for example, showing efficacy of acupuncture in adult postoperative and chemotherapy nausea and vomiting and in postoperative dental pain. There are other situations such as addiction, stroke rehabilitation, headache, menstrual cramps, tennis elbow, fibromyalgia, myofascial pain, osteoarthritis, low back pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, and asthma, in which acupuncture may be useful as an adjunct treatment or an acceptable alternative or be included in a comprehensive management program. Further research is likely to uncover additional areas where acupuncture interventions will be useful.

(Here follows the complete text and lists of panel of experts.)

The next two posts are abridged reproductions of the Consensus statement, for the convenience of readers who want to know the official stand of the US health and medical authorities.

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Bude.
http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/5090/twobudes5rb.gif

Mojo

1st March 2006, 04:43 PM

yrreg

1st March 2006, 04:47 PM

Please read the complete text in http://consensus.nih.gov/1997/1997Ac...ure107html.htm
with abundant bibliography and online links.

Introduction
Acupuncture is a component of the health care system of China that can be traced back for at least 2,500 years.

(etc. etc. etc.)

Acupuncture describes a family of procedures involving stimulation of anatomical locations on the skin by a variety of techniques. There are a variety of approaches to diagnosis and treatment in American acupuncture that incorporate medical traditions from China, Japan, Korea, and other countries. The most studied mechanism of stimulation of acupuncture points employs penetration of the skin by thin, solid, metallic needles, which are manipulated manually or by electrical stimulation. The majority of comments in this report are based on data that came from such studies. Stimulation of these areas by moxibustion, pressure, heat, and lasers is used in acupuncture practice, but because of the paucity of studies, these techniques are more difficult to evaluate.

See next post for the remainder of the text (abridged).

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Bude.
http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/5090/twobudes5rb.gif

yrreg

1st March 2006, 04:56 PM

Here is the remainder of the consensus report by the NIH on the US government approval of acupuncture. Please read the complete text in http://consensus.nih.gov/1997/1997Ac...ure107html.htm
with abundant bibliography and online links.

3. What Is Known About the Biological Effects of Acupuncture That Helps Us Understand How It Works?

Many studies in animals and humans have demonstrated that acupuncture can cause multiple biological responses. These responses can occur locally, i.e., at or close to the site of application, or at a distance, mediated mainly by sensory neurons to many structures within the central nervous system. This can lead to activation of pathways affecting various physiological systems in the brain as well as in the periphery. A focus of attention has been the role of endogenous opioids in acupuncture analgesia. Considerable evidence supports the claim that opioid peptides are released during acupuncture and that the analgesic effects of acupuncture are at least partially explained by their actions. That opioid antagonists such as naloxone reverse the analgesic effects of acupuncture further strengthens this hypothesis.

For readers who want to know about the adverse critiques voiced against the report of the NIH on US government approval of acupuncture, they can read the posts of fellow contributors to this topic, acupuncture, here in the JREF forum. Use the search function of the forum to locate pertinent messages.

I am starting a new thread on acupuncture, "Facts and Fictions in Acupuncture 3: the facts and the explanations."

Please join me there.

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Bude.
http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/5090/twobudes5rb.gif

yrreg, this post and the others above are in violation of Rule 4. Do not post copyrighted material in this manner again.

yrreg

1st March 2006, 05:48 PM

Previously I had been exchanging views with posters here on acupuncture from my stock knowledge of acupuncture. Now I will bring in materials from societies and peoples who have studied acupuncture to find out the facts and the fictions and the explanations in acupuncture.

---------------

Earlier discussions led me to address one simple question to posters here, namely:

Yes or No: Acupuncture has effected a cure to a medical complaint.

My purpose was to elicit an agreement that in fact there have been successful cures from acupuncture to medical complaints.

Posters who are adverse to acupuncture however do not seem to be inclined to see the fact, namely, that acupuncture at least has effected a cure to a medical complaint.

I was insisting on the big picture and the short statement, and to my stock knowledge, I answer that question with an Yes; however, if we would be meticulously insistent on science as an open ended discipline and the scientific method as one which can never be satisfied with our observations and verification and/or falsification of more observations, then it would be impossible to answer Yes or No; because we really cannot have studied all the cases of acupuncture treatment past, present, and future, and have done all the observations and verification or falsification of all ever observations done and to be done yet.

Nonetheless, for the present state and stage of science and to the limits of present human resources, we can say that acupuncture has effected a cure to a medical complaint, without unnecessarily bringing in all kinds of qualifications and reservations, to hedge our answer Yes or No.

Posters adverse to acupuncture point out that they have not seen any evidence in support of acupuncture that is scientifically valid.

I was waiting to see if any poster would care to bring in the evidence of a testimonial character and documentary at that, from governmental authorities; but they seem to have missed that kind of evidence from government authorities, testifying namely that acupuncture is in fact effective in some medical complaints and can be safely utilized with the ordinary safeguard exercised by prudent consumers of any medical product and service.

What they are concerned about in regard to testimonial evidence is that it can be purely what is called anecdotal evidence.

Testimonial evidence is not anecdote. In regard to successful acupuncture treatments it is given by MD's who treated patients successfully and from these patients themselves.

So, I guess we will have to ask again the simple question:

Yes or No: Acupuncture has effected a cure to a medical complaint.

Meaning, Yes or No: it is a fact that there has been at least one successful cure by acupuncture to a medical complaint.

Yes means: Yes, it is a fact that there has been at least one successful cure by acupuncture to a medical complaint.

No means: No, it is not a fact that there has been at least one successful cure by acupuncture to a medical complaint.

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Bude.
http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/5090/twobudes5rb.gif

drkitten

1st March 2006, 06:07 PM

Earlier discussions led me to address one simple question to posters here, namely:

Yes or No: Acupuncture has effected a cure to a medical complaint.

My purpose was to elicit an agreement that in fact there have been successful cures from acupuncture to medical complaints.

Posters who are adverse to acupuncture however do not seem to be inclined to see the fact, namely, that acupuncture at least has effected a cure to a medical complaint.

And this fact -- and the determined adversity -- should have given you a clue. Especially when the adversity is continually explained to you.

The basic problem is that it's not possible, even theoretically, to determine exactly what "effected" a cure in a medical situation. People often get better all by themselves -- and there's no way of knowing in any individual situation, whether the person got better "all by themselves" at the same time they were taking any particular course of treatment, or whether the treatment had a causal effect.

However, you can make these kind of causal statements (with appropriate caution) when you've got a large enough clinical sample. However, when subjected to this kind of large-scale clinical trial, acupuncture has never shown any effectiveness at all.

I was insisting on the big picture and the short statement, and to my stock knowledge, I answer that question with an Yes

And in answering it, you are flying in the teeth of all the available clinical evidence. In short, you're welcome to answer the question however you like -- but if you answer it with a Yes, you're answering it wrongly.

Nonetheless, for the present state and stage of science and to the limits of present human resources, we can say that acupuncture has effected a cure to a medical complaint,

No, we can't.

Posters adverse to acupuncture point out that they have not seen any evidence in support of acupuncture that is scientifically valid.

... and you have not presented any such evidence.

Yes or No: Acupuncture has effected a cure to a medical complaint.

Given the current state of clinical evidence? No. Any scientifically reliable evidence you can present to the contrary will, of course, be considered. But I suspect you have no more of this than you had the other two times you asked this question.

CriticalThanking

1st March 2006, 08:01 PM

Yrreg,

Since you asked folks to join you here, I will repond to your last post in the second portion of this hyrda thread here. I can't really tell what you are claiming about the NIH and accupuncture.

1) The closest thing to a positive effect discussed was in the areas of reduction of pain and nausea. The "big picture," as you like to put it, seems to be that more study is needed because nothing was definitive. The panels do not appear to claim that anything was proved.

2) You continue to hint that accupuncture affects "cures." Nowhere in the NIH statements does it say anything about cure of a medical condition. Reduction in pain and nausea, whether or not borne out in the further study recommended, are not a cure of a disease.

3) Since there is no evidence of any of your primary claims in the NIH statements, why even post it? Are you simply attempting to argue by authority?

I am hoping you are going to attempt some concluding statement (as opposed to yet another thread). But since you have provided no evidence of anything, I am hard pressed to see what conclusion about accupuncture could be logically drawn from your posts.

CT

Help beat blood cancers: tinyurl.com/fyrfm

Darat

2nd March 2006, 01:00 AM

I've merged the three "Facts and fictions in acupuncture" threads into one to help keep all the various arguments and the counter-arguments together.

Mojo

2nd March 2006, 02:52 AM

yrreg

3rd March 2006, 06:13 PM

My knowledge and acquaintance of acupuncture is what I might call stock, meaning not from devoted and concentrated self-study on the subject, but from casual reading, casual thinking and casual observations. You might call it a man in the street knowledge and acquaintance.

It is from such a background that I gave my very first opinion expressed in the thread of Paineroo, "Any value in acupuncture?"

[Post #18 in thread by Paineroo: "Any value in acupuncture?" (reproduced from posts #9 and #14).]
Originally Posted by yrreg :
Acupuncture is an acceptable option for dealing with medical complaints, if you don't have enough money for treatment and medication in conventional scientific medicine, or if conventional scientific medicine has given up on you.

[ etc. etc. etc. etc. ]

Please proceed outside this quote box for specific invitations from yours truly for your calmly considered reactions.

---------------------------

[Kindly give careful attention to phrases in bold.]

----------------
[First published in posts #9 and $14 of thread, "Any value in acupuncture?"]

1. Acupuncture is an acceptable option for dealing with medical complaints, if you don't have enough money for treatment and medication in conventional scientific medicine, or if conventional scientific medicine has given up on you.

-----------------

2. I might be wrong with this suspicion, but if you make a survey of medical complaints treated by acupuncture and treated by conventional scientific medicine, you might just find that the number of successful cases and lasting duration of the successful treatments are quantitatively the same.

3. This rough study means you get people who are treated with acupuncture and people treated with conventional scientific medicine, on the same diseases or medical complaints.
Is this a valid approach for a study? Never tried that; as I said, it is just my almost arbitrary suspicion.

4. Actually I have seen Chinese doctors using their Chinese medical procedures, with herbs or concoctions made directly from herbs, heal patients in cases where conventional scientific medicine has given up.

5. And they cost in most instances less than 20% or even less of what scientific medical practitioners will cost you, with all kinds of drugs, procedures, and equipment expenses and hospitalization. (Addendum: the sky is the limit in professional fees, unless you enjoy socialized medicine.)

6. I said that if you don't have enough money for conventional scientific medicine or this kind of medicine has given up on you, you can and might profitably try acupuncture, and I will add also Chinese medical practitioners working with herbs and drugs directly sourced from herbs, including natural components from organic and mineral origins.

7. I will also add that if you want to experiment because you are not in an urgent medical situation, try the Chinese medical practitioners, you might just save a bundle of money and get the successful lasting treatment for your medical problem.

8. I would like to ask people here whether there are scientific studies of successful treatments done by Chinese doctors in patients given up by conventional scientific medicine.

9. I think that is a good approach for a study: round up people who had been treated successfully by Chinese doctors, who had been earlier given up by medical practitioners of conventional scientific medicine, and find out why the Chinese doctors succeeded where conventional scientific doctors had given up. In this manner conventional scientific medicine stands to gain new knowledge in medicine.

10. Allow me to point out that Chinese medicine is not to be equated with what people might think to consist in gestures and in orations executed by religious medicine men, maybe called tribal healers, who would treat sick people by appeals to invisible agents called spirits.

------------------

For my part I am searching the net for reliable accounts of people given up by doctors of conventional scientific medicine, but healed and still alive and healthy today, by Chinese medical practitioners using their traditional methods, and with herbs or concoctions made from materials of organic and mineral origins.

[Please remain calm and keep to rational mood with your reactions.]

If the authorities here in this JREF forum allow, I would like to go into the aspect of medical intervention in acupuncture.

It is an absorbing inquiry, to find out what is the intervention in acupuncture which can be described as medical and to what medical end it can and even has contributed to.

For example, acupuncture has been attributed to be the intervention that leads to pain relief in a patient. I want to find out the medical condition of pain in a person, and the character of the intervention from acupuncture, and whether this intervention can be credited in any way to the relief of pain, and whether without the intervention the pain could be relieved in the patient, in the same circumstantial aspects as it is attributed to have been relieved with the intervention of acupuncture.

At present I am reading up on what exactly is a medical complaint.

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Bude.
http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/5090/twobudes5rb.gif

yrreg

5th March 2006, 04:14 PM

With the indulgence of the authorities here...

On 16th February 2006 at 09:16 AM in that thread from yours truly on Facts and Fictions in Acupuncture," post #1 (see annex below), I thought of doing a study of acupuncture from the standpoint of events, namely, before acupuncture, during acupuncture, and after acupuncture.

The purpose was to find out for my own personal enlightenment if indeed there is a beneficial effect in event after, and to determine if event after exhibits a beneficial effect, what could be the responsible ingredient in event during acupuncture, that could account for the beneficial condition in event after.

Of course for some people, and I could be mistaken as regards some people for there could be no people at all (it being all in my mind), nothing absolutely of any beneficial character happens in event after, as studies after studies they maintain of evidence have established irreversibly.

However if I may assume that reports of beneficial effects from acupuncture are genuinely factual, then if I could with the permission of authorities here, I like to continue or resume my study of acupuncture from event before, event during, and event after.

So, if I may proceed, again presuming on the allowance of the authorities here...

I have already a very rough approach to this study.

1. Get some current news reports of people who are so relieved to have their medical complaints finally answered successfully with acupuncture.

2. Divide their treatment history into three phases:

---- a. condition prior to acupuncture,
---- b. event of acupuncture treatment,
---- c. condition post acupuncture.
3. Seek the factors whatever they be that might be in any way the intervening component in the treatment event that changes the condition prior to acupuncture to the beneficent condition post.
In step 3 we want to imagine everything imaginable of however negligible connection to the complaint and however unimaginable causality with the healing of the patient.

What are all these possible components, conditions, circumstances, incidental details during the treatment period, that might have an efficacious link in any manner and degree with the successful outcome of the treatment?

Things like for example the weather, or even the body odor of the acupuncturist. Yes, laugh, but we are not going to forgo any of the categories of being in the investigation.

So, first task is to gather some successful accounts of acupuncture treatment done specially by certified practicing MD's who also go into acupuncture as a complementary skill.

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Butai.
http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/5260/putai26eo.gif

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ANNEX

[16th February 2006, 09:16 AM Facts and fictions in acupuncture post 1]

We want to find the facts and locate the fictions in acupuncture.

Facts are independent of man's mind, fictions are in the mind of man and enacted outside.

Why bother to find the facts and the fictions in acupuncture? Perhaps in the process we will realize for a categorical certainty that it is all fictions, or realize that it is both facts and fictions, as in almost everything in man's endeavors.

If we should find out that acupuncture is all fictions, then that is a very good step forward in the advancement of medical knowledge, saving time and trouble and labor to thousands who do take recourse in acupuncture, and give testimonies of their deliverance from bodily pain and discomfort and dysfunction, otherwise not susceptible to successful treatment and medication through conventional scientific medicine.

If on the other hand we should find out at least that there are facts beneficial at that, then we will absolutely also contribute to the advancement of medical knowledge for the relief of suffering -- which is the eternal concern of Buddhists: for Buddhists here, that is one great solution to your quest, so no need to spend time and patience and torture in meditation.

It is a win win exercise, the search for the facts and the fictions in acupuncture.

----------------

I have already a very rough approach to this study.

1. Get some current news reports of people who are so relieved to have their medical complaints finally answered successfully with acupuncture.

2. Divide their treatment history into three phases:

---- a. condition prior to acupuncture,
---- b. event of acupuncture treatment,
---- c. condition post acupuncture.
3. Seek the factors whatever they be that might be in any way the intervening component in the treatment event that changes the condition prior to acupuncture to the beneficent condition post.
In step 3 we want to imagine everything imaginable of however negligible connection to the complaint and however unimaginable causality with the healing of the patient.

What are all these possible components, conditions, circumstances, incidental details during the treatment period, that might have an efficacious link in any manner and degree with the successful outcome of the treatment?

Things like for example the weather, or even the body odor of the acupuncturist. Yes, laugh, but we are not going to forgo any of the categories of being in the investigation.

So, first task is to gather some successful accounts of acupuncture treatment done specially by certified practicing MD's who also go into acupuncture as a complementary skill.

Please stay posted, and remember we will change the approach as we proceed when modifications of perspectives and strategies are dictated for the sake of making the exercise more promising and easier and quicker, and of course more easy to apprehend on the part of non-partisan observers.

Lisa Simpson

5th March 2006, 04:34 PM

I have merged another one of yrreg's acupuncture threads into this one. We do not need another thread re-stating what is already stated here.

yrreg

6th March 2006, 03:12 PM

I have merged another one of yrreg's acupuncture threads into this one. We do not need another thread re-stating what is already stated here.
__________________

I am the Lizard Queen

If I didn't have inner peace, I'd completely go psycho on all you guys, all the time. -- Carl Carlson

There's no "I" in team, but there's a "Me" in mediocre.

Smart is sexy.

Thanks, Lisa. You are my kind of skeptic.

I would like to present here an expert testimony from a doctor scientist researcher in re beneficial medical effect of acupuncture.

Abstract

Annual Review of Medicine
Vol. 51: 49-63 (Volume publication date February 2000)
(doi:10.1146/annurev.med.51.1.49)

Acupuncture: An Evidence-Based Review of the Clinical Literature

David J. Mayer*
Department of Anesthesiology, Medical College of Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, 23298–0337, ; email: mayer@hsc.vcu.edu

This chapter reviews the experimental literature on the effects of acupuncture treatment. The review covers the 14 medical conditions for which the National Institutes of Health Acupuncture Consensus Development Panel (NIHCDP) concluded that acupuncture either is effective (2 conditions) or may be useful (12 conditions). My conclusions partially support those of the NIHCDP. There is evidence that acupuncture is effective for the treatment of postoperative and chemotherapy induced nausea and vomiting. Also, some data indicate that acupuncture may be useful for headache, low back pain, alcohol dependence, and paralysis resulting from stroke (4 of the 12 conditions for which the NIHCDP found that acupuncture may be useful). For most of the remaining conditions, there is little evidence that acupuncture is either effective or ineffective. It is recommended that workers in the field design double blind, sham controlled trials using adequate acupuncture treatment regimens, with specific hypotheses, and sample sizes sufficient to allow both positive and negative conclusions.

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Bude.
http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/5090/twobudes5rb.gif

yrreg

6th March 2006, 03:52 PM

On the basis of the research and conclusion made by David J. Meyer:

There is evidence that acupuncture is effective for the treatment of postoperative and chemotherapy induced nausea and vomiting. Also, some data indicate that acupuncture may be useful for headache, low back pain, alcohol dependence, and paralysis resulting from stroke (4 of the 12 conditions for which the NIHCDP found that acupuncture may be useful).

If I were to ask him point blank, to answer Yes or No, to the following question:

Acupuncture has effected a cure to a medical complaint?

What do people here think he would answer in one word, choosing Yes or No.

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Bude.
http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/5090/twobudes5rb.gif

Mojo

6th March 2006, 03:57 PM

If I were to ask him point blank, to answer Yes or No, to the following question:

Acupuncture has effected a cure to a medical complaint?

What do people here think he would answer in one word, choosing Yes or No.

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing BuddhaHaven't you done this riff already?

If you're not sure, try scrolling back up the thread.

Rolfe

6th March 2006, 04:48 PM

What makes you accept Mayer as an authority? Why not examine the evidence for yourself?

The abstract is here (http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.med.51.1.49), for those who noticed that Yrreg didn't provide a link, but you need to pay to access the full text.

Yrreg, do you have the full text? Do you think it is possible to get any more than the most superficial and facile impression of the credibility of this work without reading the full text? Come back when you have read the full text and are prepared to defend it against critical discussion.

Rolfe.

yrreg

7th March 2006, 05:33 PM

Has acupuncture effected a cure to a medical complaint? Yes or No.
To the people in the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research, if they possess reading comprehension, the answer is Yes.

http://www.ahfmr.ab.ca/hta/hta-publications/reports/acupuncture.pdf

Acupuncture: Evidence from Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses
Patricia Leggett Tait, Laurie Brooks,
Christa Harstall

March 2002
HTA 27: Series A Health Technology Assessment

Alberta Heritage Foundation
for Medical Research

Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research
Health Technology Assessment

------------------------
SUMMARY
(Selected items, please read complete report, in http://www.ahfmr.ab.ca/hta/hta-publications/reports/acupuncture.pdf)

 Acupuncture, in the strictest sense refers to “insertion of dry needles, at specially chosen sites, for the treatment or prevention of symptoms and conditions.” It is a
elatively safe procedure, but it can lead to both minor (fainting, exacerbation of symptoms) and serious (hepatitis, traumatic injury of body tissue) adverse events.

 Twenty-three reviews were included: two on dental and temperomandibular dysfunction (TMD) pain; one on headaches; one on tinnitus; three on asthma; one on stroke rehabilitation; two on antiemesis; five on neck/back pain; two on chronic pain; one on fibromyalgia; one on induction of labour; one on addictions; two on smoking cessation; and one on weight reduction. Unanimously these reviews call for higher quality research with greater sample size.

 Acupuncture was found to be effective for the treatment of dental and TMD pain and antiemesis (nausea/vomiting) in comparison to other chosen interventions. The results for idiopathic headaches and fibromyalgia were reported as encouraging. The evidence was inclusive for the treatment of back pain, chronic pain, smoking cessation, and asthma. Effectiveness was not supported by the evidence for tinnitus,
stroke rehabilitation, neck pain, addictions, and weight reduction.

 Dental and TMD pain and antiemesis appear to be two areas in which acupuncture is reproducibly effective. For all other indications the methodology design and quality is either too weak to draw conclusions, the studies have not been done, or, in studies of better quality, acupuncture does not appear to be more effective than standard of care or control chosen.

What studies were included in this report?

(Selected items, please read complete report, in http://www.ahfmr.ab.ca/hta/hta-publications/reports/acupuncture.pdf)

Of the thirty-three studies selected, twenty-three systematic reviews met the inclusion criteria, including five Cochrane Reviews (see Appendix A). A table of data extraction and quality assessment of included systematic reviews can be found in Appendix B.

Though there is growing debate as to whether the Cochrane Reviews should continue to be a ‘gold standard’ for systematic review methodology, they currently have the most rigorous methodology, and therefore, a quality assessment of these reviews was not undertaken.

The other reviews were assessed using criteria based on those set out in Greenhalgh (see Appendix D). Though this quality assessment may not be as rigorous as initially intended by its authors, it has been consistent across the reviews.

Once agreed upon, criteria have been developed for the assessment of the methodological quality of primary studies in acupuncture, the same approach should be taken for the assessment of systematic reviews.

The methodology of a review was considered to be satisfactory if it contained a concise research question(s) and inclusion criteria, an adequate search strategy, and included a quality assessment evaluation 22-28. If a review also attempted to integrate and/or statistically analyze the data, it was considered to be of good quality. The rest of the reviews were considered to be of poor methodological quality.

To recapitulate:

(Selected items, please read complete report, in http://www.ahfmr.ab.ca/hta/hta-publications/reports/acupuncture.pdf)

Growing demands on the health care system for public funding of complementary health services, the changes in legislation regarding the regulation of health care professionals, in conjunction with demand from the community for funding coverage for acupuncture treatment underline the importance and timeliness of this review.

A large body of primary research exists in acupuncture, covering virtually every symptom. Due to the breadth of this topic and the challenge of reviewing the extensive body of research on acupuncture, the approach of systematically assessing the available reviews was chosen to evaluate the current evidence for the efficacy of acupuncture. In choosing this approach, it is acknowledged that there are limitations.

Twenty-three systematic reviews on conditions such as dental pain/TMD, headaches, tinnitus, asthma, stroke, nausea/vomiting, neck/back pain, chronic pain, fibromyalgia, labour, addictions, and obesity, were included in this appraisal of systematic reviews.

This systematic review confirms the findings from other reviews which indicate consistent support for the effectiveness of acupuncture in the treatment of postoperative nausea/vomiting, and dental pain. For other indicators the robustness of the effect of acupuncture is debatable and its clinical value questionable for conditions such as idiopathic headaches, chronic pain, smoking and fibromyalgia, however some reviews indicated promising results.

The results from these reviews, the majority of which had a good quality rating, found acupuncture to be as effective as the alternative interventions or no treatment in the short term.

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Bude.
http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/7857/3buddhas5oh.gif

yrreg

8th March 2006, 06:06 PM

To the question:

Has acupuncture effected a cure to a medical complaint? Yes or No.

German researchers in a surgical clinic in Jena obviously answer Yes.

[Please read the complete article in]

http://www.icmart.org/icmart00/abstract/abst9.html

Postoperative pain management with acupuncture

GRUBE Th., KORNBERG A,
UHLEMANN Ch, MEISSNER W, SCHEELE J
(GERMANY) Surgical Clinic Jena
e-mail: grube@bach.med.uni-jena.de

Background: Acupuncture has become very popular in several fields of pain management, especially in treatment of chronic pain. The purpose of this study is the assessment of acupuncture in the treatment of postoperative pain.

Material and methods: After defined operations (vaginal and laparoscopic hysterectomy, laparoscopic appendectomy), all patients received patient controlled analgesia (PCA) with piritramid and we randomized in three groups:

----------------

Results: The use of acupuncture (group 1) lead to a reduction of piritramid application of more than 50 percent compared to group 3. In group 2, the consumption of piritramid was less than in group 3, but still higher than in group 1. We also noticed a good impact of acupuncture concerning nausea and vomiting.

Conclusion: Using scientific and reproducible parameters, acupuncture proved to be sufficient in the management of postoperative pain, nausea and vomiting. Especially multimorbid patients with risk of operation related or pharmacological side effects benefit from acupuncture. There was no effect of acupuncture regarding blood pressure and heart rate.

Abstracts of ICMART 2000 International Medical Acupuncture Congress

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Bude.
http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/7857/3buddhas5oh.gif

Mojo

9th March 2006, 12:52 AM

To the question:

Has acupuncture effected a cure to a medical complaint? Yes or No.

German researchers in a surgical clinic in Jena obviously answer Yes. Unfortunately, that study doesn't seem to have been blinded, with no placebo for the acupuncture being used, so the placebo effect hasn't been eliminated (especially since the study was looking at conditions such as pain and nausea, which have some subjective component and which the patients were asked to assess).

But at least you're now looking at clinical trials rather than single anecdotes.

Mojo

9th March 2006, 03:37 AM

Has acupuncture effected a cure to a medical complaint? Yes or No.
To the people in the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research, if they possess reading comprehension, the answer is Yes.In the two circumstances in which it appeared to them to be reproducibly effective (dental and TMD pain and nausea and vomiting) it is relieving symptoms rather than curing a complaint (as, indeed, is the case for the German study you quoted in the next post).

You also missed out a paragraph at the end of the first quotation: Clearly, more research of higher methodological quality is called for. Issues of blinding, the use of a credible control, varying diagnosis amonsgst differing philosophical approaches, and the diversity of treatment points chosen and techniques used challenge this particular area of complementary medicine. This is precisely the sort of thing that people have been telling you in this thread: the evidence so far published is generally not good enough to draw a definate conclusion one way or another.

yrreg

10th March 2006, 04:30 PM

The Facts in the Start of Acupuncture 'Fever' in the US:

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-03/07/content_4269160.htm

www.chinaview.cn 2006-03-07 12:39:51

NEW YORK, March 6 (Xinhuanet) -- How did acupuncture come to the United States around the 1970's? That is the question that has intrigued Li Yongming, a Chinese-American physician in New Jersey, for years.

There have been different answers to the question, some are facts mixed with hearsay, others are pure fabrication. But all of them give credit to a New York Times story, supposedly written by a reporter on President Richard Nixon' s epoch-making China visit.

Receiving his undergraduate education in traditional Chinese medicine in China and trained to practice western medicine after he came to the United States, Li sees himself as the right choice to fill the historical gap and facilitate the future cultural exchange between the two nations.

He seized all opportunities to do research on historic files, and interview people relevant to the event. His efforts finally paid off.

snip snip snip

On the basis of his research and investigation in both countries , Li came to the conclusion that James Reston, high-calibre journalist of the New York Times, served as a catalyst in the spread of acupuncture fever in the United States. But the time was 1971, several months before Nixon's China visit.

Li said that at the time Reston visited China and tried to get interviews with top Chinese leaders.

"The first stab of pain went through my groin," Reston later wrote in a story titled "Now Let Me Tell You the Story of My [appendectomy] Operation in Beijing" printed on the New York Times on July 26, 1971 with a front page lead.

snip snip snip

The operation was a success, but Reston complained "considerable discomfort if not pain" the night after the operation. With his approval, acupuncturist Li Chang Yuan inserted three long thin needles into the outer part of his right elbow and below his knees while holding two pieces of what "looked like the burning stumps of a broken cheap cigar" close to his abdomen.

The whole treatment took about 20 minutes, sending ripples of pain racing through the patient's limbs and having the effect of diverting his attention from the distress of his stomach. It turned out to be "noticeable relaxation of the pressure and distention within an hour and no recurrence of the problem thereafter," Reston said in the article.

According to Li Yongming, his research has found that this is the first ever mentioning of the modern acupuncture practiced in China's mainland in the U.S. mainstream media. Reston's China tour may not [be] as fruitful as he expected from a journalistic viewpoint, but his story has unwittingly sparked off a widespread "acupuncture fever" across the United States in the coming years, Li said.

snip snip snip

Li Yongming said he was overjoyed he is finally able to make a clear account of how acupuncture came to the United States. He noted that today acupuncture has grown into a profession with an annual output value of 1.65 billion dollars. Across the country there are more than 50 acupuncture schools, some 20,000 licensed acupuncturists and another 5,000 physicians with acupuncture license.

Citing the Chinese saying, "All who drink from the well should remember the well diggers," he said acupuncturists in America are grateful to Reston and his medical team for what they did to help spread this ancient Chinese therapy.

snip snip snip

Comment from Pes Oir Amsus:

To resist provisional assent in the face of overwhelming facts, and instead of investigating new directions of evidence instead of insisting on present directions of evidence, that is the most unscientific of attitude.

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Bude.
http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/7857/3buddhas5oh.gif

Ryokan

10th March 2006, 04:34 PM

Comment from Pes Oir Amsus:

To resist provisional assent in the face of overwhelming facts, and instead of investigating new directions of evidence instead of insisting on present directions of evidence, that is the most unscientific of attitude.

For once I agree with 'Pes Oir Amsus'.

Now, where is the evidence?

Rolfe

10th March 2006, 04:39 PM

Note that Reston did not have his appendix out under acupuncture anaesthesia, as is often claimed. He suffered some postoperative pain, which is not unusual, usually due to ileus (stasis of the gut). This normally resolves spontaneously, a day or two after the operation.

There is no evidence at all that the magical rite described with the needles and the cheap cigar had any influence on this outcome whatsoever.

Rolfe.

yrreg

10th March 2006, 04:44 PM

From The Cochrane Library, Issue 2, 2005. Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. All rights reserved.

http://www.cochrane.org/cochrane/revabstr/AB001351.htm

Acupuncture and dry-needling for low back pain (Cochrane Review)
Furlan AD, van Tulder MW, Cherkin DC, Tsukayama H, Lao L, Koes BW, Berman BM

snip snip snip

Main results: Thirty-five RCTs were included; 20 were published in English, seven in Japanese, five in Chinese and one each in Norwegian, Polish and German. There were only three trials of acupuncture for acute low-back pain. They did not justify firm conclusions, because of small sample sizes and low methodological quality of the studies. For chronic low-back pain there is evidence of pain relief and functional improvement for acupuncture, compared to no treatment or sham therapy. These effects were only observed immediately after the end of the sessions and at short-term follow-up. There is evidence that acupuncture, added to other conventional therapies, relieves pain and improves function better than the conventional therapies alone. However, effects are only small. Dry-needling appears to be a useful adjunct to other therapies for chronic low-back pain. No clear recommendations could be made about the most effective acupuncture technique.

Authors' conclusions: The data do not allow firm conclusions about the effectiveness of acupuncture for acute low-back pain. For chronic low-back pain, acupuncture is more effective for pain relief and functional improvement than no treatment or sham treatment immediately after treatment and in the short-term only. Acupuncture is not more effective than other conventional and "alternative" treatments. The data suggest that acupuncture and dry-needling may be useful adjuncts to other therapies for chronic low-back pain. Because most of the studies were of lower methodological quality, there certainly is a further need for higher quality trials in this area.

snip snip snip

In a test on reading comprehension, students are asked to answer the following question with Yes or No:

Has acupuncture effected a cure to a medical complaint? Yes or No.

What do readers of this thread think should their answer be?

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Bude.
http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/7857/3buddhas5oh.gif

Ryokan

10th March 2006, 04:48 PM

In a test on reading comprehension, students are asked to answer the following question with Yes or No:

Has acupuncture effected a cure to a medical complaint? Yes or No.

From your source, as quoted:

Authors' conclusions: The data do not allow firm conclusions about the effectiveness of acupuncture for acute low-back pain.

So I guess, if we were cornered and forced to choose an alternative, that would be no. But, until evidence to support either yes or no is in, it's a maybe.

yrreg

10th March 2006, 07:09 PM

Originally Posted by yrreg :
In a test on reading comprehension, students are asked to answer the following question with Yes or No:

Has acupuncture effected a cure to a medical complaint? Yes or No.

-------------------

From your source, as quoted:

Authors' conclusions: The data do not allow firm conclusions about the effectiveness of acupuncture for acute low-back pain.

So I guess, if we were cornered and forced to choose an alternative, that would be no. But, until evidence to support either yes or no is in, it's a maybe.

Imagine that you are looking for a white crow among the crows in a field, so you have to look very carefully, for it is very difficult to spot a white crow in the midst of black crows which are the rule.

Suppose you read the Cochrane excerpts again, and remember that you are allowed to answer only Yes or No, what do you think is or should be your answer in order to pass the reading comprehension test in this question:

Has acupuncture effected a cure to a medical complaint? Yes or No.

-----------------

I have the impression here that there are people -- it could be all in my mind of course -- who insist that acupuncture has not effected even just one cure to any one medical complaint.

So, I wish to attain a consensus from people here that acupuncture actually has effected at least one cure to a medical complaint.

To the people in the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research, if they possess reading comprehension, the answer is Yes.

http://www.ahfmr.ab.ca/hta/hta-publi...cupuncture.pdf

See my post #142 http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=1491533&postcount=142, above.

----------------------

Do you think honestly that I will not succeed in arriving at a consensus from people here on the fact of at least one cure effected from acupuncture to one medical complaint? Perhaps a more fruitful inquiry in this connection might be the psychology of why and how people have vaccinated themselves into immunity to see at least one cure from acupuncture to a medical complaint, whereas they can be presumed to know that there is a world greater than the one they are accustomed to from their knowledge of science today.

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Bude.
http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/7857/3buddhas5oh.gif

Mojo

11th March 2006, 02:15 AM

Suppose you read the Cochrane excerpts again, and remember that you are allowed to answer only Yes or No, what do you think is or should be your answer in order to pass the reading comprehension test in this question:

Has acupuncture effected a cure to a medical complaint? Yes or No.It appears that you are the person who is having trouble with reading comprehension, if you are expecting people to answer yes or no to your question on the basis of a review that found the evidence inconclusive, and said that "there certainly is a further need for higher quality trials in this area."

I have the impression here that there are people -- it could be all in my mind of course -- who insist that acupuncture has not effected even just one cure to any one medical complaint. And, once again, you have cited a review that is focusing on the use of acupuncture to alleviate symptoms (i.e. back pain, in this case) rather than actually curing a complaint.

So, I wish to attain a consensus from people here that acupuncture actually has effected at least one cure to a medical complaint. I suggest that you go and get some good evidence for this, then.

To the people in the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research, if they possess reading comprehension, the answer is Yes.

http://www.ahfmr.ab.ca/hta/hta-publi...cupuncture.pdf

See my post #142 http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=1491533&postcount=142, above. let's see what they actually said: "Clearly, more research of higher methodological quality is called for. Issues of blinding, the use of a credible control, varying diagnosis amonsgst differing philosophical approaches, and the diversity of treatment points chosen and techniques used challenge this particular area of complementary medicine." That looks more like a "maybe", even for the alleviation of symptoms they were looking at.

Amazing, isn't it, that while "alternative" medicine claims to be "holistic" and to treat the underlying condition, so much of what it actually appears to do focuses solely on subjective symptoms.

Do you think honestly that I will not succeed in arriving at a consensus from people here on the fact of at least one cure effected from acupuncture to one medical complaint? You will only achieve this if you can provide evidence that acupuncture can in fact do this. So far all the evidence you have cited appears to be in the form of rather inconclusive studies of the ability of acupuncture to alleviate symptoms, rather than to cure a condition..

Mojo

11th March 2006, 02:18 AM

For once I agree with 'Pes Oir Amsus'.Does this person actually exist, or is it just something yrreg has made up to try to give his opinions an air of authority?

Ryokan

11th March 2006, 03:20 AM

Does this person actually exist, or is it just something yrreg has made up to try to give his opinions an air of authority?

I suspect the latter, but have no hard and conclusive evidence.

Mojo

11th March 2006, 03:48 AM

Googling the name only brings up a single hit: a post on another bulletin board.

Mojo

11th March 2006, 03:56 AM

The board belongs to something called The Immortality Institute, by the way: Section 1 -- Name
The name of this nonprofit organization shall be “The Immortality Institute” or “Immortality Institute,” abbreviated to “ImmInst” and heretofore referred to as such by this constituting instrument.

Section 2 -- Duration
The duration of ImmInst shall be perpetual. I guess it would have to be! :D

Ryokan

11th March 2006, 04:05 AM

Yrreg is a Phillipino, and there's an expletive expression used in the Phillipines of "Susmariosep!", which is a contraction of "Jesus, Maria, Joseph!" Write that backwards and you get "Pes Oir Amsus".

Google for susmariosep, and you'll find several forum postings whose style look pretty similar to Yrreg's postings here. The same ignorance, condescention, veiled insults and copious straw.

But as I said, there's no hard evidence, and I'm not claiming Yrreg is Pes Oir Amsus. I only suspect that he is.

yrreg

11th March 2006, 03:39 PM

I am referring to this abstract from Cochrane:

http://www.cochrane.org/cochrane/revabstr/AB001351.htmFrom

The Cochrane Library, Issue 2, 2005.
Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. All rights reserved.
Acupuncture and dry-needling for low back pain (Cochrane Review)
Furlan AD, van Tulder MW, Cherkin DC, Tsukayama H, Lao L, Koes BW, Berman BM

ABSTRACT

snip snip snip

Main results: Thirty-five RCTs were included; 20 were published in English, seven in Japanese, five in Chinese and one each in Norwegian, Polish and German. There were only three trials of acupuncture for acute low-back pain. They did not justify firm conclusions, because of small sample sizes and low methodological quality of the studies. For chronic low-back pain there is evidence of pain relief and functional improvement for acupuncture, compared to no treatment or sham therapy. These effects were only observed immediately after the end of the sessions and at short-term follow-up. There is evidence that acupuncture, added to other conventional therapies, relieves pain and improves function better than the conventional therapies alone. However, effects are only small. Dry-needling appears to be a useful adjunct to other therapies for chronic low-back pain. No clear recommendations could be made about the most effective acupuncture technique.

Authors' conclusions: The data do not allow firm conclusions about the effectiveness of acupuncture for acute low-back pain. For chronic low-back pain, acupuncture is more effective for pain relief and functional improvement than no treatment or sham treatment immediately after treatment and in the short-term only. Acupuncture is not more effective than other conventional and "alternative" treatments. The data suggest that acupuncture and dry-needling may be useful adjuncts to other therapies for chronic low-back pain. Because most of the studies were of lower methodological quality, there certainly is a further need for higher quality trials in this area.

snip snip snip

The medical complaint dealed with in the report is low-back pain.

A test of reading comprehension reveals that there are mentioned what we might consider kinds of pain being treated by acupuncture.

What does the report say about the evidence of acupuncture effecting relief from low-back pain?

See next post for a list of mentions of low-back pain and acupuncture in the whole report of Cochrane in http://www.cochrane.org/cochrane/revabstr/AB001351.htmFrom

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Bude.
http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/7857/3buddhas5oh.gif

yrreg

11th March 2006, 04:47 PM

In a reading comprehension test for promotion to the chief-editor's post in a newspaper, among other screening measures subjects are given the text of the report from Cochrane:

Acupuncture and dry-needling for low back pain (Cochrane Review)http://www.cochrane.org/cochrane/rev...001351.htm

And they are required to answer the following question with an Yes or No reply, or abstain from answering the question.

Has acupuncture effected a cure to a medical complaint? Yes or No.

One enterprising subject made a list of the mentions of pain and acupuncture, by encircling with his pen all mentions of pain and acupuncture in the given text.

1. Acupuncture and dry-needling for low-back pain (Cochrane Review) Furlan AD, van Tulder MW, Cherkin DC, Tsukayama H, Lao L, Koes BW, Berman BM ABSTRACT...

2. Background: Although low-back pain is usually a self-limiting and benign disease that tends to improve spontaneously over time, a large variety of therapeutic interventions are available for its treatment.

3. Objectives: To assess the effects of acupuncture for the treatment of non-specific low-back pain and dry-needling for myofascial pain syndrome in the low-back region. Search strategy...

4. Selection criteria: Randomized trials of acupuncture (that involves needling) for adults with non-specific (sub)acute or chronic low-back pain, or dry-needling for myofascial pain syndrome in the low-back region.

5. There were only three trials of acupuncture for acute low-back pain.

6. For chronic low-back pain there is evidence of pain relief and functional improvement for acupuncture, compared to no treatment or sham therapy.

7. There is evidence that acupuncture, added to other conventional therapies, relieves pain and improves function better than the conventional therapies alone.

8. Dry-needling appears to be a useful adjunct to other therapies for chronic low-back pain. No clear recommendations could be made about the most effective acupuncture technique.

9. Authors' conclusions: The data do not allow firm conclusions about the effectiveness of acupuncture for acute low-back pain.

10. For chronic low-back pain, acupuncture is more effective for pain relief and functional improvement than no treatment or sham treatment immediately after treatment and in the short-term only.

11. The data suggest that acupuncture and dry-needling may be useful adjuncts to other therapies for chronic low-back pain.

12. AD, van Tulder MW, Cherkin DC, Tsukayama H, Lao L, Koes BW, Berman BM. Acupuncture and dry-needling for low-back pain. The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2005, Issue 1. Art. No.: CD001351.pub2.

And that enterprising subject chose the answer Yes, to the question:

Has acupuncture effected a cure to a medical complaint? Yes or No.
The rest answered No or chose to abstain from answering.

If the people here in this thread should do as the enterprising subject did, what is your answer or reaction to the question:

Has acupuncture effected a cure to a medical complaint? Yes or No.
Hint: Avoid reading and attending only to what concords with your made-up mind, pay attention to lines #6 and #10 where you have categorical affirmative statements.

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Bude.
http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/7857/3buddhas5oh.gif

Rolfe

11th March 2006, 04:52 PM

I think he's got us all on ignore!

Rolfe.

Jeff Corey

11th March 2006, 05:35 PM

[QUOTE=yrreg;1500182]In a reading comprehension test for promotion to the chief-editor's post in a newspaper, among other screening measures subjects are given the text of the report from Cochrane:

Acupuncture and dry-needling for low back pain (Cochrane Review)http://www.cochrane.org/cochrane/rev...001351.htm...
[QUOTE]
The link doesn't work, so we can't tell if they are from reliable journals. Good luck next time, o corpulent one.

yrreg

11th March 2006, 06:15 PM

Originally Posted by yrreg :
Suppose you read the Cochrane excerpts again, and remember that you are allowed to answer only Yes or No, what do you think is or should be your answer in order to pass the reading comprehension test in this question:

Has acupuncture effected a cure to a medical complaint? Yes or No.

It appears that you are the person who is having trouble with reading comprehension, if you are expecting people to answer yes or no to your question on the basis of a review that found the evidence inconclusive, and said that "there certainly is a further need for higher quality trials in this area."

I have the impression here that there are people -- it could be all in my mind of course -- who insist that acupuncture has not effected even just one cure to any one medical complaint.

And, once again, you have cited a review that is focusing on the use of acupuncture to alleviate symptoms (i.e. back pain, in this case) rather than actually curing a complaint.

So, I wish to attain a consensus from people here that acupuncture actually has effected at least one cure to a medical complaint.

I suggest that you go and get some good evidence for this, then.

To the people in the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research, if they possess reading comprehension, the answer is Yes.

http://www.ahfmr.ab.ca/hta/hta-publi...cupuncture.pdf

See my post #142 http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php...&postcount=142, above.

let's see what they actually said: "Clearly, more research of higher methodological quality is called for. Issues of blinding, the use of a credible control, varying diagnosis amonsgst differing philosophical approaches, and the diversity of treatment points chosen and techniques used challenge this particular area of complementary medicine." That looks more like a "maybe", even for the alleviation of symptoms they were looking at.

Amazing, isn't it, that while "alternative" medicine claims to be "holistic" and to treat the underlying condition, so much of what it actually appears to do focuses solely on subjective symptoms.

Do you think honestly that I will not succeed in arriving at a consensus from people here on the fact of at least one cure effected from acupuncture to one medical complaint?

You will only achieve this if you can provide evidence that acupuncture can in fact do this. So far all the evidence you have cited appears to be in the form of rather inconclusive studies of the ability of acupuncture to alleviate symptoms, rather than to cure a condition.
__________________
"You got to use your brain." - McKinley Morganfield

"We've been attacked by the intelligent, educated segment of the culture." - Pastor Ray Mummert

Not sure, and proud of it!

And, once again, you have cited a review that is focusing on the use of acupuncture to alleviate symptoms (i.e. back pain, in this case) rather than actually curing a complaint. -- Mojo

Amazing, isn't it, that while "alternative" medicine claims to be "holistic" and to treat the underlying condition, so much of what it actually appears to do focuses solely on subjective symptoms. -- Mojo

So far all the evidence you have cited appears to be in the form of rather inconclusive studies of the ability of acupuncture to alleviate symptoms, rather than to cure a condition. -- Mojo

Let us leave aside the accusation that acupuncture only deals with the symptoms but not the cure of a medical complaint.

I want to dwell on symptomatic treatment to medical complaints in conventional scientific medicine.

I had a discussion once with the house doctor of the place where I work, about symptomatic treatment of medical complaints.

He told me that as a matter of fact as far as he knows a very big part of medical practice for himself (more than 80%) and doctors he knows who are into primary care, symptomatic treatment is what they do when anyone comes to them with a medical complaint, for example shortness of breath or difficulty with breathing.

And he says that symptomatic treatment is absolutely medicine proper and very critically crucially important in any medical practice that is worth its salt.

In many many cases if you don't deal with the symptoms right away, the patient will die or get worse and worse until he becomes irremediably incapacitated for life or finally loses his life.

He tells me ancient physicians like Hippocrates and modern ones always attend right away to the four symptoms when a patient presents himself to them, namely:

dolor -- pain
calor -- heat, i.e., fever
tumor -- swelling
rubor -- redness

And I told him, "You forget one very important symptom." "What is that," he asked me. "Issue of blood," I reminded him, for example, nose-bleeding, esophageal bleeding, anal bleeding, vaginal bleeding.

-----------------

I still consider you a friend, Mojo, although to my impression and as per your words you have demanding standards for friends; for me a friend is someone who can use some good turn in any manner, and I want to do good turns to people here in the way of motivating them to be genuine skeptics -- even to people who otherwise to my impression harbor an unkind heart and mind toward persons who disagree with them.

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Bude.
http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/7857/3buddhas5oh.gif

yrreg

11th March 2006, 06:33 PM

Shrinker

12th March 2006, 04:56 AM

Here's a maths exam question. Answer or fail the exam...
What is 2+3: Yes or No?

You're a TV fashion tipster. Answer or lose ratings...
What's next season's colour: Yes or No?

You're being interrogated. Answer or die...
Who is you commanding officer: Yes or No.

No matter how many times you ask your idiotic fantasy question, you're not going to goad them into giving you and idiotic answer. How stupid are you? I know nothing about this subject, or medicine or anything much, but even I can see that the conclusions in your study quite clearly say "we don't know". Not YES, not NO, but WE DON'T KNOW!

How painfully desperate are you to cling to that tiny ray of hope. "For chronic low-back pain, acupuncture is more effective for pain relief and functional improvement than no treatment or sham treatment immediately after treatment and in the short-term only." So what? Hitting them over the head with a frying pan would work immediately after treatment and in the short term only. Or pulling on gun on them... or throwing a bucket of water over them... Where's the cure? Where's the real benefit? It's agonisingly sad. I know people with chronic back pain and they've done all the rounds with the quacks but in the end, they've got most benefit out of a simple hot water bottle. They work great in the short term. Maybe that's because they're full of special kettle-chi that flows through the... oh god I can't even be bothered...

Sorry, it's probably a drive-by, but I just had to say it.

Blue Wode

12th March 2006, 05:53 AM

How painfully desperate are you to cling to that tiny ray of hope. "For chronic low-back pain, acupuncture is more effective for pain relief and functional improvement than no treatment or sham treatment immediately after treatment and in the short-term only." So what? Hitting them over the head with a frying pan would work immediately after treatment and in the short term only. Or pulling on gun on them... or throwing a bucket of water over them... Where's the cure? Where's the real benefit? It's agonisingly sad. I know people with chronic back pain and they've done all the rounds with the quacks but in the end, they've got most benefit out of a simple hot water bottle.

Shrinker, I’m sure your sentiments are shared by many. In fact, Bob Park wrote in a similar vein about acupuncture for arthritis of the knee back in December 2004:

A Maryland study of 570 elderly patients who suffer from arthritis of the knee, found that 6 months of acupuncture modestly reduced pain and improved agility. Six months? Why not take an aspirin? Scientists suggest the needles stimulate release of endorphins. Jalapeno peppers do the same thing. So it wouldn't matter where you stick the needles would it? Then who needs an acupuncturist?

Acupuncture: Researcher finds the haystack is full of needles
http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN04/wn122304.html

Shrinker

12th March 2006, 06:03 AM

Shrinker, I’m sure your sentiments are shared by many. In fact, Bob Park wrote in a similar vein about acupuncture for arthritis of the knee back in December 2004:

Acupuncture: Researcher finds the haystack is full of needles
http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN04/wn122304.html

Hehe, that's great thanks. Jalapeno peppers eh? This supports my own Fearsome Hot Curry Healing Regime which works great on minor ailments and for my general 'wellness'. Perhaps I can start up a 3 year degree course in it.

yrreg

12th March 2006, 04:06 PM

For people who care to pass tests in reading comprehension made up of questions like the following:

Has acupuncture effected a cure to a medical complaint? Yes or No.

And you are asked to read a text for example from the gold standard of medical reviews, the Cochrane Collaboration,* about acupuncture and low-back pain:

Acupuncture and dry-needling for low-back pain (Cochrane Review)
http://www.cochrane.org/cochrane/revabstr/AB001351.htm

Here are some tips for people who care to be genuine skeptics:**

1. Read very carefully what the question is all about (that is also and already a challenge to your reading comprehension).

2. Encircle with your pen every mention of acupuncture and of pain in the given text.

3. Locate categorical statements in the text which convey in no uncertain terms that acupuncture effects or does not effect relief of low-back pain.

4. On the basis of these categorical affirmative and negative statements, choose your answer Yes or No.

For an illustration on the use of these tips, see my post #159 of the present thread, page 2, above, http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=1500182&postcount=159

Should you happen to be in an open competitive examination for any reward, like admission to a limited enrollment in a prestigious graduate studies center, and the admission committee disagrees with you about your answer to that question, you can then challenge them all to the highest court of the land; and you will win.

Please read next post for another reading comprehension test: Cochrane on meditation.

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Bude.
http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/7857/3buddhas5oh.gif

*WHAT ARE COCHRANE REVIEWS?
http://www.cochrane.org/docs/newcomersguide.htm#reviews

Cochrane Reviews are systematic assessments of evidence of the effects of healthcare interventions, intended to help people to make informed decisions about health care, their own or someone else's. Cochrane Reviews are needed to help ensure that healthcare decisions throughout the world can be informed by high quality, timely research evidence. This is described in 'Systematic reviews and The Cochrane Collaboration'. Cochrane Reviews are published in full in The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, one of several databases in The Cochrane Library.

THEIR IMPACT AROUND THE WORLD
The main output of The Cochrane Collaboration, the Cochrane Reviews, has had a real and significant impact on practice, policy decisions and research around the world. Many examples are given in 'The Impact of Cochrane evidence'.

**Genuine skeptics are people who always maintain very strictly, no not a made-up-mind, but one that for a default keeps the door ajar on every issue which even the masters of skepticism have already closed to the door to believing that they know already everything correctly of life and the universe -- including themselves.

(Courtesy of Pes Oir Amsus)

Ryokan

12th March 2006, 04:11 PM

Genuine skeptics are people who always maintain very strictly, no not a made-up-mind, but one that for a default keeps the door ajar on every issue which even the masters of skepticism have already closed to the door to believing that they know already everything correctly of life and the universe -- including themselves.

(Courtesy of Pes Oir Amsus)

Will you answer a question yourself, dear Yrreg?

Is it possible that acupuncture is fake medicine? Answer yes or no.

I also take it that this means you admit that you are Pes Oir Amsus?

yrreg

12th March 2006, 04:34 PM

Here is a group of applicants to a prestigious graduate studies center, and among other measures they are being tested on reading comprehension, and they come across this question to be answered with Yes or No, or to be left unanswered (meaning applicant does not know how to answer at all):

Has meditation effected a relief to anxiety? Yes or No.

And they are given this text from the Cochrane Collaboration:

Meditation therapy for anxiety disorders
http://www.cochrane.org/reviews/en/ab004998.html

So, our enterprising applicants will encircle with his pen all mentions of meditation and anxiety, thus:

1. Meditation therapy for anxiety disorders Krisanaprakornkit T, Krisanaprakornkit W, Piyavhatkul N, Laopaiboon M Plain language summary...

2. Although meditation therapy is widely used in many anxiety-related conditions there is still a lack of studies in anxiety disorder patients.

3. The small number of studies included in this review do not permit any conclusions to be drawn on the effectiveness of meditation therapy for anxiety disorders.

4. Transcendental meditation is comparable with other kinds of relaxation therapies in reducing anxiety, and Kundalini Yoga did not show significant effectiveness in treating obsessive-compulsive disorders compared with Relaxation/Meditation.

5. Drop out rates appear to to be high, and adverse effects of meditation have not been reported.

6. Anxiety disorders are characterised by long term worry, tension, nervousness, fidgeting and symptoms of autonomic system hyperactivity.

7. Meditation is an age-old self regulatory strategy which is gaining more interest in mental health and psychiatry.

8. Meditation can reduce arousal state and may ameliorate anxiety symptoms in various anxiety conditions.

9. Objectives: To investigate the effectiveness of meditation therapy in treating anxiety disorders...

10. Types of participants: patients with a diagnosis of anxiety disorders, with or without another comorbid psychiatric condition.

11. Types of interventions: concentrative meditation or mindfulness meditation.

12. ...psychological treatment 3) other methods of meditation 4) no intervention or waiting list.

13. Types of outcome: 1) improvement in clinical anxiety scale 2) improvement in anxiety level specified by triallists, or global improvement 3) acceptability of treatment, adverse effects 4) dropout.

14. Both studies were of moderate quality and used active control comparisons (another type of meditation, relaxation, biofeedback).

15. Anti-anxiety drugs were used as standard treatment.

16. In one study transcendental meditation showed a reduction in anxiety symptoms and electromyography score comparable with electromyography-biofeedback and relaxation therapy.

17. Another study compared Kundalini Yoga (KY), with Relaxation/Mindfulness Meditation.

18. The small number of studies included in this review do not permit any conclusions to be drawn on the effectiveness of meditation therapy for anxiety disorders.

19. Transcendental meditation is comparable with other kinds of relaxation therapies in reducing anxiety, and Kundalini Yoga did not show significant effectiveness in treating obsessive-compulsive disorders compared with Relaxation/Meditation.

20. Drop out rates appear to be high, and adverse effects of meditation have not been reported.

How do the skeptics in this website page answer the question:

Has meditation effected a relief to anxiety? Yes or No.

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Bude.
http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/7857/3buddhas5oh.gif

Ryokan

12th March 2006, 05:20 PM

How do the skeptics in this website page answer the question:

Has meditation effected a relief to anxiety? Yes or No.

Excuse me, why did you suddenly change the subject? Bored of typing in the same thing over and over again?

Why are you asking us to answer questions when you refuse to answer any yourself?

Maybe there's something wrong with your reading comprehension?

Anyway, from that text of yours, it's impossible to answer yes or no to the question, for the same reason that your previous question couldn't be answered yes or no.

Why? This quote here, from your previous post :

18. The small number of studies included in this review do not permit any conclusions to be drawn on the effectiveness of meditation therapy for anxiety disorders.

yrreg

12th March 2006, 06:07 PM

I am not forcing anyone to answer the question; and I can't force anyone.

It is just an invitation which anyone can decline or accept, all in the spirit of exchange of views, to the advancement of knowledge for the benefit of mankind -- my humble ambition.

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Bude.
http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/7857/3buddhas5oh.gif

Ryokan

12th March 2006, 06:13 PM

CriticalThanking

12th March 2006, 07:34 PM

I am not forcing anyone to answer the question; and I can't force anyone.

It is just an invitation which anyone can decline or accept, all in the spirit of exchange of views, to the advancement of knowledge for the benefit of mankind -- my humble ambition.

No, you cannot force anyone to participate. What you are attempting to do is called framing the debate. How many times can we say it?

You are not asking questions that have meaningful answers as you frame them.
You patently ignore statements in your "evidence" about inconclusiveness and need for more study to be able to draw conclusions.

This is not an exchange of ideas. It appears to be a test of patience.

CT

Oolon Colluphid

12th March 2006, 09:44 PM

I have absolutely no intention of wading through 5 pages of this, so I'll just jump right in at the end and say that I had acupuncture for a hip condition in the early 90's and I haven't been bothered with it since.

It all began in 1980, when I slipped during an indoor footb...er...soccer game and landed squarely on my left hip. From that day forward, I was plagued by periodic bouts of what I self-diagnosed as sciatica. My doctor, on the other hand, begged to differ. He ordered x-rays of course, and blood analysis. He prescribed Indocid (anti-inflamatory), two capsules three times per day, but it did nothing. A few weeks later he called and asked me to come to his office. He was grinning like a cheshire cat. The reason he was so pleased, he said, was that I was his first ever case of Ankylosing Spondylitis, a form of rheumatoid arthritis if I remember correctly. I would have shared his enthusiasm but for the fact that he then informed me that it is incurable, and that eventually the bones in the small of my back would fuse together. Lovely! However, just to verify his diagnosis, he made an appointment for me with an osteopath, and he made arrangements for me to visit with a physiotherapist. Now, I should point out that, by that time, the pain was intermittent. Much of the time it was merely a nuisance, but at others it would flare up and be nothing less than debilitating. At those times, it felt as though the lining of my hip joint was completely gone, and the act of walking made it feel like bone grating on bone in the joint. Every movement was accompanied by excrutiating agony. As time went by, the really bad attacks became less frequent, but never more than six months apart. From time to time, it would flare up again and be almost more than I could bear, so I would go and see my doctor. He eventually admitted that his A-S diagnosis had proved to be inaccurate, a fact he had known for some time but had just never gotten around to telling me. He was at a loss. After years of listening to me complain, his best advice was "Try to remember what you were doing before the attack, then don't do it anymore". Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant! Let's see, I got up, had a shower, dried myself, got dressed, got in my car, drove to work.......I know what he was getting at, and it would have been helpful if there were any activities that were out of the ordinary in which I had engaged before the pain began, but there weren't any. Now, I'm quite certain that, once the pain began, I altered my gait and it is highly probable that doing so served to aggravate the condition. It would usually last for weeks. Sometimes months. I don't know what took me so long, but I did seek an alternative to traditional western medicine. I was desperate. And so I went to see an acupuncturist. Now, this man was a doctor of 'traditional' medicine as well, and was a consultant at a large teaching hospital, so it wasn't simply a matter of letting some guy jam long, sharp electrified needles in my butt. Long story short (oops! too late!), I received 8 treatments after which time I was able to run, jump, tie my own shoes, drive my stick shift car without everyone thinking I was pasted! It was utterly phenomenal, the difference acupuncture made to my quality of life. I should not gloss over just how painful the procedures were. Afterall, he pushed those needles directly into the largest nerve in the human body (if memory serves) and then wiggled them around for good measure. Once they were in place, he then attached them to a mild current, and I had to lay there on my face with an a$$ full of electric needles for half an hour and pay for the privelege! The point is, for whatever reason, acupuncture worked for me. I haven't had an attack in over 12 years! Call it the placebo effect, or aversion therapy, what-have-you, I just don't care. Well...I am a bit curious, and the best explanation I could come up with is, I probably had pinched a nerve in my hip when I fell, and his needling managed to unpinch it. Would I try acupuncture again? That would depend on what the problem was. I wouldn't trust it to, for instance, stop me smoking. Do I think there's a metaphysical component involved? No.

I had to laugh one day, though. I was looking at the mannequins he had with all the meridians and little black dots where the needles go, and I noticed there was quite a concentration of dots in the middle of the face. I was going to ask him what needs to be wrong with you before you get needles in the face. Then I pictured him making stabbing motions with a needle and yelling "Ha! You no pay you bill!" Laughter truly is the best medicine. Hey, maybe that's what cured me!? :D

yrreg

13th March 2006, 03:29 PM

Yesterday, 12:44 PM #174
Oolon Colluphid
Critical Thinker

Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Trapped inside an osteal carapace.
Posts: 395

I have absolutely no intention of wading through 5 pages of this, so I'll just jump right in at the end and say that I had acupuncture for a hip condition in the early 90's and I haven't been bothered with

Good friend, Oolon, may I ask of you to answer the following question with an Yes or No, or just say you prefer not to answer it for whatever reasons you also prefer not to tell us about.

Has acupuncture effected a cure to a medical complaint? Yes or No.

I am so happy for you that today it is March 14, 2006, and since early 90's after your acupuncture treatment, you have not been bothered anymore with your hip condition, for which your conventional scientific doctor had given up on you.

If you had come to me much earlier I could have told you my recommendations, see next post.

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Bude.
http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/7857/3buddhas5oh.gif

yrreg

13th March 2006, 03:57 PM

Dear good friend Oolan, I gave this list of recommendations on that thread, "Any value in acupuncture by Paineroo," and I have been explaining myself from since then, and even defending myself in the midst of the most hostile fires from some people here frequently employing very unkind language.

I am really so glad that you have come along, and gave us your own personal testimony of one acupuncture treatment that has effected a cure to a medical complaint.

[Reproduced from earlier posts in:]
http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=1435886&postcount=9
http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=1436054&postcount=14

[Kindly give careful attention to phrases in bold.]

----------------

1. Acupuncture is an acceptable option for dealing with medical complaints, if you don't have enough money for treatment and medication in conventional scientific medicine, or if conventional scientific medicine has given up on you.

-----------------

2. I might be wrong with this suspicion, but if you make a survey of medical complaints treated by acupuncture and treated by conventional scientific medicine, you might just find that the number of successful cases and lasting duration of the successful treatments are quantitatively the same.

3. This rough study means you get people who are treated with acupuncture and people treated with conventional scientific medicine, on the same diseases or medical complaints.
Is this a valid approach for a study? Never tried that; as I said, it is just my almost arbitrary suspicion.

4. Actually I have seen Chinese doctors using their Chinese medical procedures, with herbs or concoctions made directly from herbs, heal patients in cases where conventional scientific medicine has given up.

5. And they cost in most instances less than 20% or even less of what scientific medical practitioners will cost you, with all kinds of drugs, procedures, and equipment expenses and hospitalization. (Addendum: the sky is the limit in professional fees, unless you enjoy socialized medicine.)

6. I said that if you don't have enough money for conventional scientific medicine or this kind of medicine has given up on you, you can and might profitably try acupuncture, and I will add also Chinese medical practitioners working with herbs and drugs directly sourced from herbs, including natural components from organic and mineral origins.

7. I will also add that if you want to experiment because you are not in an urgent medical situation, try the Chinese medical practitioners, you might just save a bundle of money and get the successful lasting treatment for your medical problem.

8. I would like to ask people here whether there are scientific studies of successful treatments done by Chinese doctors in patients given up by conventional scientific medicine.

9. I think that is a good approach for a study: round up people who had been treated successfully by Chinese doctors, who had been earlier given up by medical practitioners of conventional scientific medicine, and find out why the Chinese doctors succeeded where conventional scientific doctors had given up. In this manner conventional scientific medicine stands to gain new knowledge in medicine.

10. Allow me to point out that Chinese medicine is not to be equated with what people might think to consist in gestures and in orations executed by religious medicine men, maybe called tribal healers, who would treat sick people by appeals to invisible agents called spirits.

------------------

For my part I am searching the net for reliable accounts of people given up by doctors of conventional scientific medicine, but healed and still alive and healthy today, by Chinese medical practitioners using their traditional methods, and with herbs or concoctions made from materials of organic and mineral origins.

[Please remain calm and keep to rational mood with your reactions.]

Yrreg

Again, I am so glad for you and for the advancement of knowledge in mankind, and the banishment of fanaticism and bigotry.

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Bude.
http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/7857/3buddhas5oh.gif

Oolon Colluphid

13th March 2006, 04:09 PM

Good friend, Oolon, may I ask of you to answer the following question with an Yes or No, or just say you prefer not to answer it for whatever reasons you also prefer not to tell us about.

Has acupuncture effected a cure to a medical complaint? Yes or No.
I am so happy for you that today it is March 14, 2006, and since early 90's after your acupuncture treatment, you have not been bothered anymore with your hip condition, for which your conventional scientific doctor had given up on you.

Although it is not outside the realm of possibility that there was some other explanation for the change in my medical condition, I'm going to go out on a limb and say 'Yes, acupuncture effected a cure for my medical complaint'. However, as I pointed out, even if acupuncture does work in certain cases, it should not be automatically assumed that it does so via the stated mechanisms, ie meridians and chi etc.

yrreg

13th March 2006, 05:12 PM

I consider myself a genuine and even super skeptic compared to some others here; and I insist on being academically non-emotive in the disquisition of an issue, always maintaining the door in my mind a bit ajar, instead of insisting that science as known today has the final definitive and immutable explanations for everything we know of life and the universe.

Allow me to reproduce here one early post in this thread where I had to answer a poster here who in effect told me to go away and join a pro alternative medicine board, forgetting that this board is exactly ordained by its author toward education, i.e., of everyone, including you and me and all who do care to be educated in the most exalted sense of humanistic aspiration for knowledge wherever it leads mankind. And what is the title of this website? Answer: James Randi Educational Foundation Forum; and I am absolutely certain that the author here is against all forms of fanaticism and bigotry.

[http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=1453440&postcount=14]

There is emotion and emotion.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Originally Posted by Yuri Nalyssus (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=1456766#post1452470):

I think you'll find that constitutes an emotional response.

I am still waiting for an answer to my question to Yrreg - What is it about emotional responses that worry him, what does he feel is wrong with robust debate?

People on this list presumably feel strongly about alternative medicine, why cannot Y.reg debate on this level. If confrontation makes Y.reg so unhappy all he needs to do is go to a more pro-acupuncture list. If Y.reg really cares about the points on debate he should start answering some questions. I would rather listen to mild sarcasm and the occasional passionate outburst than to veiled insults.

Yuri

Emotional responses of the kind in which people are called stupid and to be engaged in stupidity, are inhibitive to productive discussion, because they cloud the creative faculty of the mind to arrive at solutions to questions which solutions could be workable even though not in accordance with scientific doctrines of today -- in which case we have to broaden into new directions our concept and practice of science.

Consider war, it is not a rational answer to the conflict among men, but an emotional one. That's why we have to avoid emotionalism in our discourse here, if we want to be productively useful to each other instead of slaughtering each other.

However, there is emotion and emotion. The emotion that drives people to find the programming that exists or might exist or should exist in everything, that is one emotion that should always dwell in the hearts of men, who are given to the quest for knowledge wherever the quest leads them.

People on this list presumably feel strony about alternative medicine, why cannot Y.reg debate on this level. If confrontation makes Y.reg so unhappy all he needs to do is go to a more pro-acupuncture list. If Y.reg really cares about the points on debate he should start answering some questions. I would rather listen to mild sarcasm and the occasional passionate outburst than to veiled insults. -- Yuri (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=1456766#post1452470):

That is where and why people here are wrong, and I am right to be here, because I am a super skeptic with a demanding scientific critical attitude, i.e., open to all directions except fanaticism and bigotry.

Here is a saying from my favorite student of human behavior, Pes Oir Amsus:

Be not like unto frogs which chant in unison.
This is a rhetorical question: Has anything radically new ever been found by dwelling on the present doctrines of science and confining one's mind to them as to exclude all other avenues of thought imaginable and unimaginable?

Originally Posted by Yrreg:
(http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=1448085#post1448085
CE 16th February 2006, 05:14 AM post 55)

I am modesty aside a super skeptic: where everyone is in the bandwagon, like taking up Buddhism or bashing acupuncture, then I will take the opposite tack.

About answering questions, I am always in a hurry, so I have to choose what questions to answer in order to benefit all parties here, of whatever persuasion or sympathy, specially visitors who seek to read something of help to themselves, and not be bored with endless nitpicking that totally forgets the big picture which can be set forth in the short statement.

Good friend Oolan, you know as well as myself that explanations can always be thought up by man to satisfy his own understanding of phenomena which otherwise would be inexplicable to his mind -- that human mind which better exposed and experienced searchers know to be indeed limited in regard to its acquaintance with life and the universe.

First, before anything else, we want to verify the existence of a phenomenon, in the present context that acupuncture has effected a cure to a medical complaint.

Then we will try to analyze it according to our latest command of explanation or science at present; the ancients also had their own command of explanation, which in the light of our present command of explanation, which we call today's science, is inadequate.

Now, if it should happen that today's science cannot explain sufficiently to our understanding (i.e. again, of science today); then we have to look in new directions for explanations that will render the phenomenon in question comprehensible to our mind that is always in search for a better view of life and the universe.

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Bude.
http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/7857/3buddhas5oh.gif

delphi_ote

13th March 2006, 05:31 PM

Mojo

14th March 2006, 01:02 AM

Sorry to rain on your parade, yrreg, but Oolon's reply isn't the sort of unequivocal "yes or no" answer that you are looking for. Note that he said, "it is not outside the realm of possibility that there was some other explanation for the change in my medical condition". This, as has already been pointed out to you several times, will always be an issue in anecdotal accounts. If acupuncture really is an effective treatment for this condition, it should be possible to run a controlled trial to eliminate other factors. I suggest that you look for a report of such a trial.

Mojo

14th March 2006, 01:09 AM

I am modesty aside a super skeptic: where everyone is in the bandwagon, like taking up Buddhism or bashing acupuncture, then I will take the opposite tack.This is not a sign that you are any sort of sceptic. The idea that "sceptics" blindly oppose everything is a strawman. A sceptic is someone who bases their opinion on a subject on the available evidence.

Opposing ideas because they appear to be the majority view is not a sign that you are a sceptic: it is a sign that you are a troll.

Asolepius

14th March 2006, 01:54 AM

yrreg:
Your repeated (and tedious) insistence on this `yes or no' principle demonstrates clearly how very little you understand about medicine, science, and indeed what knowledge really is. There are no absolutes in science, only diminishing uncertainty as knowledge increases. Your voluminous posts do not as you think show definitively that acupuncture cured anything, but every new post you make adds to the uncertainty. You are not going to convince anyone here by selecting sound bites that appear to support your simplistic ideas, while ignoring all the data which support a more equivocal interpretation.

Tell me, what scientific training have you had? What science books have you read? I mean books by proper scientists - eg Feynmann, Dawkins, Ridley, Medawar, Alvarez, Sagan, Margulis etc. If you haven't, do so and expand your mind.

yrreg

15th March 2006, 05:52 PM

I was asking people here to answer to the question, on the authority of Cochrane:

Has acupuncture effected a cure to a medical complaint? Yes or No.

Here is my answer again, though already given but not very explicitly:

I answer YES to the question:

Has acupuncture effected a cure to a medical complaint? Yes or No.

What I want to do now is to show people here why the answer should be Yes. I will reproduce the lines mentioning acupuncture and pain, in Cochrane's abstract of its review on the studies of:

Acupuncture and dry-needling for low back pain (Cochrane Review)http://www.cochrane.org/cochrane/revabstr/AB001351.htm

http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=1500182&postcount=159

List of mentions of pain and acupuncture in Cochrane's report:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. Acupuncture and dry-needling for low-back pain (Cochrane Review) Furlan AD, van Tulder MW, Cherkin DC, Tsukayama H, Lao L, Koes BW, Berman BM ABSTRACT...

2. Background: Although low-back pain is usually a self-limiting and benign disease that tends to improve spontaneously over time, a large variety of therapeutic interventions are available for its treatment.

3. Objectives: To assess the effects of acupuncture for the treatment of non-specific low-back pain and dry-needling for myofascial pain syndrome in the low-back region. Search strategy...

4. Selection criteria: Randomized trials of acupuncture (that involves needling) for adults with non-specific (sub)acute or chronic low-back pain, or dry-needling for myofascial pain syndrome in the low-back region.

5. There were only three trials of acupuncture for acute low-back pain.

6. For chronic low-back pain there is evidence of pain relief and functional improvement for acupuncture, compared to no treatment or sham therapy.

7. There is evidence that acupuncture, added to other conventional therapies, relieves pain and improves function better than the conventional therapies alone.

8. Dry-needling appears to be a useful adjunct to other therapies for chronic low-back pain. No clear recommendations could be made about the most effective acupuncture technique.

9. Authors' conclusions: The data do not allow firm conclusions about the effectiveness of acupuncture for acute low-back pain.

10. For chronic low-back pain, acupuncture is more effective for pain relief and functional improvement than no treatment or sham treatment immediately after treatment and in the short-term only.

11. The data suggest that acupuncture and dry-needling may be useful adjuncts to other therapies for chronic low-back pain.

12. AD, van Tulder MW, Cherkin DC, Tsukayama H, Lao L, Koes BW, Berman BM. Acupuncture and dry-needling for low-back pain. The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2005, Issue 1. Art. No.: CD001351.pub2.

Right away, we must know that Cochrane works first in establishing the facts, then drawing the conclusions; for intelligent readers of Cochrane's reviews the facts alone are enough for themselves to draw the conclusions.

See next post for the facts and the conclusions from Cochrane.

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Bude.
http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/7857/3buddhas5oh.gif

yrreg

15th March 2006, 06:30 PM

Acupuncture and dry-needling for low back pain (Cochrane Review)
http://www.cochrane.org/cochrane/revabstr/AB001351.htm

What are the facts established by Cochrane on acupuncture and pain? Here, in question and answer form:

Question I: Is there evidence for the fact of pain relief from acupuncture for chronic low-back pain?

Answer: 6. For chronic low-back pain there is evidence of pain relief and functional improvement for acupuncture, compared to no treatment or sham therapy.

Question II: Is there evidence of better pain relief from acupuncture than from conventional therapies alone?

Answer: 7. There is evidence that acupuncture, added to other conventional therapies, relieves pain and improves function better than the conventional therapies alone.

Question III: Is there evidence for dry-needling as an adjunct treatment to chronic low-back pain?

Answer: 8. Dry-needling appears to be a useful adjunct to other therapies for chronic low-back pain.

What are the conclusions of Cochrane from the facts established by them on evidence, in question and answer form?

Question IV: What is the conclusion for acute low-back pain?

Answer: 9. Authors' conclusions: The data do not allow firm conclusions about the effectiveness of acupuncture for acute low-back pain.

Question V: What about for chronic low-back pain?

Answer: 10. For chronic low-back pain, acupuncture is more effective for pain relief and functional improvement than no treatment or sham treatment immediately after treatment and in the short-term only.

Question VI: What is the general conclusion for chronic low-back pain?

Answer: 11. The data suggest that acupuncture and dry-needling may be useful adjuncts to other therapies for chronic low-back pain.

------------------

To the question then:

Has acupuncture effected a cure to a medical complaint? Yes or No.

I answer YES; as can be seen in the careful reading and examination of Cochrane's review on:

Acupuncture and dry-needling for low back pain (Cochrane Review)
http://www.cochrane.org/cochrane/revabstr/AB001351.htm

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Bude.
http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/7857/3buddhas5oh.gif

CriticalThanking

15th March 2006, 10:11 PM

Mojo

16th March 2006, 01:11 AM

What are the facts established by Cochrane on acupuncture and pain? Let's look at their conclusions: The data do not allow firm conclusions about the effectiveness of acupuncture for acute low-back pain.So we can't answer "yes" to your question in respect to acute low-back pain.

For chronic low-back pain, acupuncture is more effective for pain relief and functional improvement than no treatment or sham treatment immediately after treatment and in the short-term only. Since your question is "Has acupuncture effected a cure to a medical complaint", this does not allow us to answer "yes" in respect to chronic low-back pain, as it only appears to provide temporary relief, and does not cure the complaint.

The data suggest that acupuncture and dry-needling may be useful adjuncts to other therapies for chronic low-back pain. The words "may be" in that sentence mean that they were unable to draw a firm conclusion.

Because most of the studies were of lower methodological quality, there certainly is a further need for higher quality trials in this area. In other words, they have concluded that the evidence from the available studies is not good enough to draw a firm conclusion.

To the question then:

Has acupuncture effected a cure to a medical complaint? Yes or No.
I answer YES; as can be seen in the careful reading and examination of Cochrane's review on:

Acupuncture and dry-needling for low back pain (Cochrane Review)

You have answered "yes" to your question on the basis of a review in which the authors clearly concluded that the evidence is not conclusive, and that the relief provided by acupuncture for chronic low-back pain appears to be only short-term. Why do you think the authors were wrong in their conclusions?

Rolfe

16th March 2006, 03:01 AM

CriticalThanking - why do you consistently mis-spell "acupuncture"?

[/nitpick]

Rolfe.

Oolon Colluphid

16th March 2006, 04:09 AM

Oolon (and indirectly Yrreg),

First, I am very happy for you for your recovery from a debilitating condition.

The treatment you described was (electrical over-)stimulation of a nerve. This technique is sometimes used in pain management. The stimulation can be via a needle through the skin, but can be from a conductur implanted under the skin. Some patients use such devices to help manage their own pain levels. Even simple physical stimulation can desensitize an area.

Did "accupuncture cure your problem?" That may depend upon your definition of accupuncture. In your case, a needle was involved, but that was not necessarily required. Had it been direct stimulation without a needle through the skin, would you (or Yrreg) still consider that accupunture? Meridians (as yrreg consistantly ignores) do not correspond directly with nerve pathways and needle placement does not seem to matter for some of the pain/nausea reduction techniques to which her refers elsewhere. Your treatment was directly to the nerve, not to a meridian, unless one were to claim the docor was lucky enough to hit one. Is this still accupuncture?

So I think the limb with more support for a position would be about electronic stimulation of nerves, not accupuncture.

My $.02.

CT

It was, without a doubt, acupuncture. There were multiple needles inserted at a time during each session, and one session in which the needles were stuck in and around my (left, IIRC) ear only. There were numerous mannequins around the office with all the meridians and points clearly marked on them. The doctor knew what he was doing. During one of (perhaps the) first sessions, he hit the sciatic nerve dead on, and as you can well imagine, this made me tense up and squirm quite a bit. He admonished me for this, saying that if he lost the nerve (mine, not his!) he would have to search around for it again. His intention was to stimulate the sciatic nerve, and this, he did. Now, you might have missed my last post on the subject or just missed the relevant part, in any case, here it is again:

...even if acupuncture does work in certain cases, it should not be automatically assumed that it does so via the stated mechanisms, ie meridians and chi etc.

I should add, and I perhaps should have mentioned it before, that the doctor wanted to continue the treatment for several more sessions. He explained that my condition wasn't 'stabilised'. Whereupon I explained to him that my bank account had stabilised...at $0.00! I couldn't afford to keep seeing him, and as far as I was concerned at that point, I was 'cured'. So far, so good! Oh, one more thing, there were some powdered chinese herbs that I was supposed to eat. But I only ate one of the half dozen or so packets, as they tasted quite foul. If they were intended to be an essential part of the treatment, then one could effectively argue that I proved that they were not.

Oolon Colluphid

16th March 2006, 04:11 AM

CriticalThanking - why do you consistently mis-spell "acupuncture"?

[/nitpick]

Rolfe.

Accuratepuncture? :rolleyes:

Ryokan

16th March 2006, 09:52 AM

Just curious. Is acupuncture paranormal enough to be viable for the million?

Rolfe

16th March 2006, 10:27 AM

Solitaire

16th March 2006, 11:24 AM

Yes, accoding to Randi. However, since nobody is disputing that when you stick needles in it, the body notices, I'm not sure exactly what he'd expect you to demonstrate. Simply saying, if I stick a needle here, x will happen, surely isn't going to cut it, if x could be perfectly physiological.

Rolfe.
Oh wow, Can I enter this study and win?

Sham Acupuncture Versus Placebo Pill (http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/abstract/332/7538/391?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=1&author1=Kaptchuk&andorexacttitle=and&andorexacttitleabs=and&andorexactfulltext=and&searchid=1142468380111_23354&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=relevance&fdate=2/1/2005&resourcetype=1,2,3,4)

Swelling, redness, pain caused by not sticking a needle in, surely that's as paranormal as it gets! ;)

CriticalThanking

16th March 2006, 11:49 AM

CriticalThanking - why do you consistently mis-spell "acupuncture"?

[/nitpick]

Rolfe. :confused: I would have thought that was obvious. It is because I am an idiot. :blush:

CT

ETA: I also consistantly mis-spell "consitent."

CriticalThanking

16th March 2006, 12:11 PM

It was, without a doubt, acupuncture. There were multiple needles inserted at a time during each session, and one session in which the needles were stuck in and around my (left, IIRC) ear only. There were numerous mannequins around the office with all the meridians and points clearly marked on them.
[snip]
During one of (perhaps the) first sessions, he hit the sciatic nerve dead on, and as you can well imagine, this made me tense up and squirm quite a bit
I am sorry I was not clearer. I guess that is the distinction I am attempting to draw. Yes, the doctor was attempting to perform ACUPUNCTURE (thanks, Rolfe :) ). But were all needles required? We multiple treatments required? Were the herbs you mentioned required? When the needle directly touched the sciatic nerve, he now moved into an area slightly better studied in pain management, whether or not he intended to do so.

So was acupuncture (the treatment methodology) the relief, or was direct stimulation of the nerve? At the moment we cannot know for your case. That is why more studies are needed. First, see if the effects can be replicated. Second and third, isolate the possible cause/mechanism and find the best treatment option(s). If antibiotics and a good bedside manner will cure my infection, great. But I want to be sure I get the well-studied antibiotics first. Any placebo actions are a bonus.

And on behalf of empathetic wimps everywhere, may I sincerely say... OUCH! , and once again congratulations.

CT

Ryokan

16th March 2006, 01:44 PM

Yes, according to Randi.

Did you hear that, Yrreg? Prove acupunture works, and win a million dollars!

(Rolfe, sorry, corrected a typo in what I quoted from you :p)

Mojo

16th March 2006, 04:17 PM

yrreg

16th March 2006, 04:18 PM

Just curious. Is acupuncture paranormal enough to be viable for the million?

In my own thinking, acupuncture is not a paranormal phenomenon.

You see -- and I may be wrong here, so correct me -- a paranormal phenomenon is an event in the universe which is not normal, namely, not subject to a norm, namely again, not regular; to be brief: it cannot occur again.

What about so-called chance events? Chance events are chance to human observations, but in themselves they can and have occurred again and again I am sure in the vast recesses of the universe and time beyond human observations.

It is not possible for us to predict a so-called paranormal event or phenomenon because we don't know all the laws of life and the universe; but they can and have happened again and again in the as I said vast or even almost infinite in human conception reaches of the universe and time.

That is why I think very seriously that Randi is laughing all the time in offering a million to anyone who can perform or can point to a paranormal phenomenon or event; because he knows that there are no paranormal events except in our limited human observations -- and he can always fall back on what I have just written above, namely, no phenomenon or event in the universe is unique that cannot ever in the vast recesses of the universe and time happen again, it can and will and certainly has happened again and again -- and therefore it is not paranormal but normal, which is to say: when the factors responsible for the phenomenon meet again together the phenomenon will occur again.

Now, acupuncture is not a paranormal phenomenon, not a man-made paranormal event; it is normal only we still do not know and much less command the laws and all other components for its successful operation, unlike we know how to produce fire.

My point all along with the question:
Has acupuncture effected a cure to a medical complaint? Yes or No.
is precisely to explain that acupuncture is not a paranormal phenomenon or event or occurrence; I mean that in all the millennia of man's quest for healing, acupuncture has been at least once successful in effecting a healing even for a period; at least for periodical reliefs from medical complaints, just like people take anti-hypertensives for bringing down blood pressure to within normal range, and then take them again tomorrow and repeatedly everyday; and we cannot say that anti-hypertensives do not effect a cure to the medical complaint of hypertension or high-blood pressure because their effect of lowering blood-pressure is temporary.

I never studied acupuncture as much as I have done today, by reading and thinking; but I have met people whom I knew to be plagued by medical complaints and they have benefited from acupuncture: for pain, for allergies, for wounds, and other ills, which refuse to heal, or for which no relief was found in conventional scientific medicine. And I have talked with their acupuncturist; and I know that acupuncturists are doing successful practice everywhere.

When the Wright brothers were flying their primitive airplanes there were still people who refused to witness their experiments, but continuously wrote about the impossibility of objects heavier than air floating and moving in the air from its own operation in the air without any support linked to the ground.

If those people would only observe the phenomenon being demonstrated by the Wright brothers, just one instance; then they could have the certainty that humans can be certain with, that locomotion in air is possible and actual; and they could and should undertake researches into the how and the why on scientific premises.

In our case if they would at least see one successful cure of acupuncture to a medical complaint, then they should or might think of doing very serious and extensive researches into the why and how of acupuncture, with all the methods and instrumentations available today for scientific research.

By the way, some people here are resistant to the idea that the question I am asking, namely:

Has acupuncture effected a cure to a medical complaint? Yes or No.

doubting the validity and legitimacy of such a line of questioning.

In which case, what about this question:

Has surgery effected a cure to a medical complaint? Yes or No.

Yrreg, aspiring Fat Laughing Buddha

---------------

From Nirvana with love, Bude.
http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/7857/3buddhas5oh.gif