The medical system may be in trouble, but that doesn’t mean acupuncture is the solution. It is probably an effective placebo, capable of easing pain and nausea. While it may be helpful for short-term relief of these two symptoms, it’s hardly a panacea for all disease or the entire medical system.

Question acudavid – do you use a TCM diagnosis process? Do you needle acupuncture points or meridians? Do you explain acupuncture to your clients using qi? How much training did you get? How much do you use that training? How much did it cost? Did your training focus on anatomy and sterility? If not, what? Do you needle the low back, or elsewhere in the body?

“the anesthesiologists were killing so many patients, that leading Md’s and hospitals invited Chinese acupuncturists to provide acupuncture anesthesia during surgery… obviously not a placebo!”

Nonsense! How many patients were anesthesiologists killing? References, please!
And acupuncture anesthesia is a myth. See:
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/acupuncture-anesthesia-a-proclamation-from-chairman-mao-part-ii/#more-494

Please read my post above to boogafish concerning the brain imaging after acupuncture.

You asked me if I had ever practiced. I used mostly transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) for musculoskeletal pain, which acupuncturists like to call “electroacupuncture.” The pain relief properties come from the electricity, not the needles. Actually, most acupuncturists routinely use TENS and attribute the main management properties of electricity to some magical healing force. Nonsense.

Yes, you are absolutely right; they were lancets. Please look at the pictures I have posted here:

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/acupuncture-and-fascial-planes-junk-science-and-wasteful-research/

Well, if a state wants to mandate that its citizens learn one common language, fine. Under the 10th Amendment states certainly have that right and it’s impossible to create road signs in ten languages.

No, they don’t. Perhaps you are familiar with the amendment that comes nine earlier. Moreover, do you understand that the signage argument has nothing to do with the actual assertion?

Yeah, I know needles were once much thicker and oftentimes, but not always, bloodletting resulted.

“Needles“? These are lancets.
Does this remind you of anything?

That’s all I’ve been doing. Are you reductionists such denialists of the reality before you that it causes you to be this obtuse? Here, let me repeat only a few facts I’ve already said:
Fact: Ma huang, a Chinese herb to treat the common cold–used for centuries by these primitive savages who call it a wind-cold invasion–was so efficacious that we had to rip it off, ie pseudoephedrine, and ban its use from their medicine.

Pseudo-ephedrine is a nasal decongestant. It doesn’t treat rhinoviruses, it alleviates symptoms. Also, Ma huang may provide an uncertain dose of pseudoephedrine, the process to produce, purify and package pseudoephedrine results in a uniform product that ensures you get enough of the product without overdosing. You should read some of Scott Gavura’s posts, they’re fascinating. It’s like claiming vitamin C “treats” the common cold – it doesn’t, it’s a decongestant, it just makes you less sniffly. You’re infected and infectious for just as long, you just don’t feel as miserable while you are infected.

Also, the common cold is caused by a virus, not a “wind-cold invasion”. The term “wind-cold invasion” is used to situation the symptoms within a larger context of inaccurate idea about the causes of disease. It’s about as useful as the European belief that the cold was caused by an excess of Phlegm, or fever an excess of Blood. All three are about equally descriptive – all three are completely wrong. Can you show me where the literature on TCM it says “wind-cold invasion is caused by very, very, very small things that you can’t see and aren’t really alive but cause sickness anyway”? You’re mistaking a description for an understanding, an error you have made several times (vis. Aboriginal people and scurvy). Nobody understood much of anything, particularly not in biology, until the advent of empiricism.

Fact: entire villages were being wiped out in bacterial plague 1,800 years ago a man named Zhang Zhongjing complied a treatment protocol-acupuncture and herbal- that effectively cured them with acupuncture, moxabustion and herbs. Oh, but the Chinese documented this fact in their historical records, not the CDC, so again ill pretend your fact doesn’t exist.

Please provide the historical record. Please indicate what part of the record indicated it was bacterial. Please indicate where it was noted that bacteria were very, very, very small things, but larger than the thing that causes wind-cold invasion, that can live without a host. The Chinese may have had reasonable clinical descriptions, but then again so did Galen – and the Ancient Egyptians predated Galen by nearly two thousand years. That beats Zhang by about the same amount, so that means the Egyptians win, right? So the cause of disease is evil spirits and the cure is prayers to Thoth. Certainly safer than acupuncture.

Age doesn’t win. Evidence wins. Get some evidence.

Fact: brain imaging studies have been conducted showing activation of specific centers when qi is obtained via acupuncture needle.

So…now that studies support your beliefs about acupuncture, they can be trusted? But not when they indicate you’re wrong? You’ve got your argument the wrong way ’round, it’s premise then conclusion. Also, provide the study and I’ll probably be able to explain why it might not mean what you think it means. And finally, the fact that specific centres in the brain light up with fMRI does not mean acupuncture cures any disease. Crack lights up a whole mess of stuff in the brain, that doesn’t mean it’ll make your cancer go away.

I could go on and on, with many more, and I already have. Nobody wants to debate me on fact, you choose to ignore them and say I’m not presenting anything..that’s your pathetic debate strategy.

Of course not. More accurately, you’ve provided precious few facts, and no citations, weblinks or other way of identifying the source of your assertions. Here’s a fact, Felix Mann, acupuncturist, has stated that “The traditional acupuncture points are no more real than the black spots a drunkard sees in front of his eyes”. That’s from Acupuncture: The Ancient Chinese Art of Healing.

Science isn’t what facts you choose to interpret, it isn’t ignoring facts and data that’s inconsistent with a predetermined result…no science isn’t that, but your argument certainly is.

Now here’s my problem with this. Most of your statements are quite exceptional. For them to be correct, large amounts of history, biology and physics would have to be pretty, spectacularly wrong. Further, you have provided no evidence for them, merely your own cherry-picked assertions (for instance, do you have any examples of the magical wisdom of herbs beyond Ma huang? Not that you’ve provided evidence of efficacy regarding even that one). Meanwhile your opponents have stuck to basically pointing out flaws in your logic (and occasionally facts with citations). You’re the one making rather extraordinary claims, but you haven’t provided the extraordinary evidence to back it up. So if you want to play dueling citations, we can play that – but please provide the citations.

Also, science is a method for arriving at facts that stand a good chance of being true, or at least “truer” than untested facts. Saying science is facts is much like saying Shakespeare is letters. It rather misses the point, the origins, the context, the background and the reason why it is special. Science certainly isn’t about predetermined results, it’s about testing. TCM, and in particular your defense of it, is far more about defending predetermined outcomes from testing, or ignoring the results.

Why don’t you ask the millions of Americans why they don’t get the flu shot?

The ‘flu shot is very much an open question. It’s not the best vaccine for a bunch of reasons, and it’s not deadly in the same way smallpox, polio, pertussis or typhoid are. Not to mention the rabid fearmongering spread by nutters about it. See also here. You appear to be mistaking an open empirical question with considerable naunce with “the entirety of the medical system”. Medicine doesn’t stand or fall on the basis of whether enough people get the ‘flu shot. For that matter, the effectiveness of the ‘flu shot doesn’t stand on the basis of how many people get the ‘flu shot.

And again – just because science is complicated doesn’t mean TCM is effective.

Yeah, I know needles were once much thicker and oftentimes, but not always, bloodletting resulted. Bloodletting is sometimes used as the primary treatment method in cases of excess. But are you denying all the evidence to show acupuncture–with needles–has efficacy for many conditions. You can cherry-pick all the sham studies you want, just like you cherry picked my arguments. How do you account for the real-time brain imaging scans done which show specific centers of the brain lighting up when certain points are needled to obtain the arrival of qi?

What evidence? From what I have read, it’s basically two symptoms (pain and nausea) and a flawed evidence base for one condition (fertility).

I would also question where those light-up spots are. From what I recall, it’s in areas basically related to where you needle, in the sensory homunculus.

How do you account for the 1500 year history of Japanese acupuncture, where bloodletting is rarely performed, and where thin needles are shallowly inserted? Are you saying their people have been engaging in mass gullibility for ages?

I thought we were talking about traditional Chinese medicine? What I see there is the kind of schism that comes up when a nonempirical system spreads, much like the splintering of religions over time. There’s also Tibetan, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese and other types of acupuncture. Which is correct? Are they all? How is that possible?

Hell, how do you account for the obvious mass public demand here. 10,000 acupuncturists in California alone! Surviving…with those living expenses. Maybe the masses are just smoking really good weed out there.

The placebo effect is not unitary. Two pills are better than one, needles are better than pills, surgery is better than needles, and it is enhanced by various factors (exoticness, “sciency”ness, drama and a lengthy consultation) and acupuncture has pretty much all of these. “Demand” is also not evidence of effectiveness, witness the demand for homeopathy, or tissue debridement for knee osteoarthritis. Upon independent testing, smoking actually appears to be ineffective.

I mean, the government props up “modern medicine” with a myriad of funding in order to prevent its complete collapse–meanwhile, acupuncture receives no such artificial subsidation…and somehow 10,000 acupuncturists are able to survive high costs of living in California by duping the masses and engaging in fraud. That’s your argument in a nutshell, right?

Citation needed for “modern medicine” being near complete collapse. Bernie Madoff also maintained quite the lifestyle in the even more expensive New York City, does that mean he was a good investor?

OK, I’m not saying reductionism doesn’t have its mertis. In the grand scheme of things, I actually like it because the proud scientist who climbs a mountaintop, thinking he’ll be the first to discover–through ardent trial and error–what’s at the zenith, (while he’s dreaming that he’ll make all the journals, receive all the grant-research, funding, and acclaim) and once he reaches the summit he, to his great dismay, realizes that there’s been wise men and “primitives” who have been living up there for ages. Of course, he’s able to describe, in minute detail, all of the findings they’ve known about for ages. But he was last. The primitives he dismissed, banned, and attacked beat him there.

Reductionism is merely far more successful than the random trial and error and anecdotes used previously by all cultures, including the Chinese. You still don’t seem to recognize how much more we know than the “wise” ancients. Even if those ancients knew that Thunder God vine had biochemical effects or that smallpox could be vaccinated against, they had absolutely no idea why it worked, and couldn’t manipulate, improve, stabilize, repeat, mass-produce, standardize and monitor the way we can. Can you provide me a single reference in the TCM literature that indicates it new smallpox was caused by a virus, that pneumonia was caused by a bacteria, that lactose intolerance was caused by an enzyme deficiency? I doubt it, in fact I doubt the Chinese had the words to even describe these concepts.

I gave the example of Chinese discovering erythropoetin earlier.

But singly failed to actually prove they “discovered” it. All you noted was that the Chinese associated some foods with “dampness”, then asserted this meant they knew what inflammation was beyond the trivial observation that heat, redness and swelling are indications of injury (and you might want to google “Calor, dolor, rubor, and tumor”).

The actual discoverer appears to be Carnot, who isolated the molecule from the blood while Reissman and Erslev demonstrated it increased the amount of red blood cells and hematocrit.

I gave the example of American Indians curing scurvy.

And I noted James Lind’s role; a more accurate description might be that American Indians noted boiled pine needles treated scurvy, Lind noted that citrus fruits also treated scurvy, and a whole host of scientists (Holst, Frølich, Funk, Szent-Györgyi, Svirbely, King and Haworth) actually isolated the specific molecule. Noting an empirical claim isn’t the same thing as discovering the mechanism. It’s like claiming the discoverer of the keystone arch actually discovered the theory of relativity.

And ultimately, that’s what people want in a healthcare system. You talk about “what’s helpful these days” …well human beings don’t want to wait for you to arrive at the mountaintop of understanding last. They don’t want to be ruined by a prideful, arrogant system that claims it has all the answers when it shows time and again it doesn’t have a clue. They don’t want to die of scurvy until you can figure out that it’s not incurable, they need something that works now.

Scurvy has been long since cured. In fact most of the low-hanging fruit that could reasonably be attributed to the “ancients” have long-since been plucked. Science is currently working on curing patients of cancers caused by surviving chemotherapy that would have killed patients in their teens. We are building vaccines into fruits. Severed limbs can be surgically re-attached. There is no more smallpox. Tell me again about how great TCM is? What was its success rate in curing leukemia? What is the Chinese character used in 1400 AD to represent leukemia?

Your characterization of science waiting to “get to the top of the mountain” is flatly wrong. Aspirin was used as a painkiller and blood thinner after it was proven to work but before its mechanism was understood. There are fast-tracking protocols for clinical trials where evidence of efficacy is dramatic for conditions lacking effective treatments. You’re repeatedly attacking straw men that bear no resemblance to how science or medicine actually moves forward. Science also acknowledges when it is incorrect (vis. the whole cell pertussis vaccine) and corrects itself. Can you point to an aspect of TCM that has been discarded in the face of empirical evidence, or has it remained preserved in 16th-century amber, irrespective the massive, amazing increases in knowledge in the past decade alone?

You said it yourself there with your word choice… Musings. Now, if I were making your racist point for you, I might have chosen ‘utterances’ or ‘growls’ instead of “musing” for maximum effect. “Deluded imaginings”, however, takes the cake.

Musings is appropriate, as it characterizes thought in the absence of evidence, an idle speculation without the testing that makes science so successful. “Deluded imaginings” is also defensible. “Delusion” in the sense of strong conviction despite evidence to the contrary (or for that matter, no evidence for or against). Imaginings in the sense of “making stuff up then making up more stuff under the assumption the previous stuff is true”. Vis. qi, meridians, moxibustion, the five elements and so on.

Seriously, though, I provided it in my original argument which you chose to ignore. Allow me to repeat these to you: the Chinese, in their thinking, exhibited incredible sophistication in the relationship between the kidneys, bones and blood before the discovery of erythropoetin.

Your original argument actually consisted of “the Chinese thought certain foods were good for inflammation”, you basically said that meant they got credit for erythopoetin. You’re going to have to do a lot better than that. For instance, could you provide the character used in 16th century China for “erythropoetin”?

The Chinese, in their sophistication, cured epidemics of viral illnesses while modern science today has no clue what to do, except prescribe you-know-what, which causes epidemics of who-knows-what.

Most epidemics are treated with vaccinations actually, a preventive measure that is available for smallpox, measles, mumps, rubella, influenza, pertussis, typhoid, yellow fever, hepatitis A, B, C, dyptheria, cholera, and polio, just off the top of my head. I doubt they cured anything, citations please? I know it has been argued that smallpox vaccinations originated in China, so good for that. What else is there? Note that vaccination isn’t a cure, it’s a preventive.

The Chinese cured damp-bi of the joints, while modern medicine gives methotrexate which destroys the immune system…etc, etc, etc.

Is methotrexate the sole treatment for arthritis? Is there any indication the Chinese appreciated the distinctions between the 100 different types of arthritis? And is there evidence that avoiding tomatoes, milk and peppers actually cures any type of arthritis?

I could give you a slew of fresh examples too, but really my point is to illustrate something larger: that perhaps your act of ignoring each of my prior points on the subject, then asking “please tell me..why should modern science give high enough place to some random musings..” is a question that is ironically reflective of the larger actions of “science” which continues ignoring all the curings the Chinese people have experienced through a medicinal art, and because it doesn’t understand it, dismisses them as primitive and gullible for clinging to ethereal imaginings.

My problem that you are asserting these things without any actual evidence to back it up. I can say that TCM is the result of aliens beaming thoughts into your head from space, but that’s not evidence. What evidence is there? Citations? Peer-reviewed articles? If these cures are proven, where is the proof? Surely if they’re as effective as you claim, someone has done the trivially easy randomized clinical trials to demonstrate this?

1) Why is it that the worst of the internet pseudointellectuals always succumb to pointing out spelling mistakes as proof of their intellectual superiority? At no time did you address the spirit of my argument. At no time did you take on any of my points. It is spineless and cowardly to attack things like grammar and spelling while shirking from substantial debate.

I kinda think my rather long post attacked the spirit (rather, pointed out the flaws in the substance) of your argument.

Spelling and grammar on the internet are like the suit you wear to an interview. They are fleeting first impressions that can prejudice the rest. I try, but often fail, to be as coherent and error-free as possible, and appreciate correction. I thought you might appreciate the same, plus it pokes fun at your rant and definitely annoyed you so hooray! There’s only so much frothing illogic I can handle before I can’t resist. Thank goodness Google Chrome has spell-check built in or I’d look even worse.

2) Cultural bias my comment reeks of? If defending past cultures from dismissive labels like “primitive” by people like you, then guilty as charged…but don’t expect me to agree with your label of “cultural bias” any more than I agree with your label of these cultures as “primitive” or your label of your ineffective and unproven SSRI’s as “real medicine”.

1) The first use of the term “primitive” on this comments thread was by you, according to my search feature.

2) The term “primitive” in comparing the knowledge and technological achievements of China before 1900 and the current knowledge base that is the collective achievement of modern science is quite accurate, particularly when discussing biology which requires a microscope. To make the roots of my criticism perfectly clear – all pre-empirical knowledge was so close to equally primitive compared to what we know now. This includes Greek/European vitalism, Chinese preoccupation with qi and Egyptian beliefs in the ka and ba. I’m not speaking of the rich cultural heritage found everywhere in the world, the myths and legends they created, the literary achievements or the spiritual heights achieved (no matter how worthless in terms of physical health), I’m speaking specifically of empirically verifiable knowledge, what ancient cultures knew about biology, physics, astronomy, geography, geology and any other hard science. Even history for that matter.

3) You’re probably thinking right here you’ve got me again on an error because this is the third point of two points. And you can’t wait to “take me down” for making a third point of two points just like you “destroyed me” by pointing out a misspelling. OOOOHH, you’re such an amazing debater, I don’t know how I can survive this battle of the wits..I’m so obviously outmatched and overwhelmed here… Please, please, uncle, uncle, please, don’t embarrass me any further with your superior mind.

I don’t think my mind is superior, but my grasp of history seems to be better, my grasp of logic definitely is, and I’m guessing despite my efforts through mostly civil and coherent counter-arguments, my ability to change my mind through reference to evidence is unarguably superior. I used to believe in auras, energy fields, ghosts, spirits, acupuncture and the healing power of crystals. I looked into it, read the criticisms, learned more about the scientific method, studied up on biology and came to the conclusion that it was bunk and hokum.

I will also point out that:
a) I did make a substantive point and
b) you could have changed the lead in to your list from “two” to “three”
c) I’ve made a lot of substantive points that you’ve either ignored or replied with irrelevant tangents or logical fallacies.

Oh wonderful, you finally talk about antibiotics. I was wondering when I’d find an opening in the argument to address them…

I hope you don’t talk about how antibiotics can’t treat viral infections, a point that science has recognized for decades now and considerable effort has been extended towards addressing antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Again, where did this criticism come from, TCM practitioners? I think it was from doctors.

Penicillin creates a state of dysbiosis. The human being contains ten times more bacterial cells than human cells, meaning we are, in fact, mostly bacteria and “science” still has no clue what all the functions of normal human flora are, or even why states of dysbiosis occur.

In terms of number, yes there are more bacterial cells than human cells. In terms of weight, there are several orders of magnitude difference. Science may not understand the full and collective action of bacteria in the gut and skin, but TCM didn’t even know what bacteria were, so yay for science!

It was only relatively recently discovered, for instance, that obese individuals have a different proportion of firmicutes than healthy individuals, which ought to beg “science” to ask if their over-reliance of antibiotics for things like, oh say viral infections, might actually be causing an epidemic of iatrogenic obesity?

I’m more inclined to say it’s over-eating, the massive increase in availability and decrease in cost for simple sugars, fatty foods and decrease in exercise that’s responsible.

It ought to beg “science” to ask the question, “What did the ancient Chinese do for people with infections? How did they cure entire villages of epidemic febrile diseases??” Oh, but drug companies, and the “science” that supports them, would rather not ask those questions, they’d rather sell things like Fen-Phen to them to help with weight loss, Vioxx to help them with knee osteoarthritis from carrying 400 lbs on them for years, and then when these worthless fatties destroy their bodies with those meds (all proven in FDA trials for safety and efficacy, btw) we’ll cut out organs, we’ll give them more toxic drugs we’ve duped the public into thinking is safe, and we’ll destroy more, more, more.

Ya, Big Pharma being evil doesn’t mean TCM works. How did the Ancient Chinese cure entire villages of febrile diseases? And is “febrile disease” a meaningful term when “fever” is a symptom, not a cause? Modern medicine doesn’t use antibiotics to treat a fever, it uses them to treat acute bacterial infection. Modern medicine uses vaccination to prevent viral infections, not antibiotics, Fen-Phen or Vioxx. If you’re interested in a substantive discussion, you might also try maintaining a consistent point rather than Gish-galloping a whole bunch of tangents. If you just want to vent, please let me know so I won’t bother pretending this is a civil discussion.

My whole point was that, as a free society, people ought to be able to choose the treatment best for them. Again, you failed to address my argument. Do you not think people ought to choose for themselves if they want to be touched by the hand of death that has been caught time and again lying about the efficacy of their poison,? Do you not allow them to pursue an alternative to “science” which has shown itself over and over again to be, in its application by humans, nothing but manipulated numbers, testing, and a greedy agenda that all must bow down and worship as the true, objective reality? I’m not saying science doesn’t exist, conceptually, but what passes as science today is anything but…and yet you want to shove it down everyone’s throat like it’s an antibiotic that treats viruses

I think the treatment that is best for a person is the one tested and proven to work. You keep asserting that TCM is effective (often on spurious grounds like “Big Pharma is evil/doctors treat viral infections with antibiotics”), but you have yet to provide any proof that it is. If TCM works, it can be proven to work. Nobody here is advocating for patients to be prevented from consulting TCM practitioners, at best it has been argued that practitioners be tested fairly and in English (because they may one day have to treat a non-Chinese speaker if nothing else). Do you object, for instance, to blatant cheating and for the selling of answers, or do you view that as a valid way of passing a test? Mostly this discussion has been about, for me, the fact that science, empirical testing and rationalism is not racist, and that the Chinese, like all cultures, knew less than we did before empiricism became the overwhelmingly successful approach to everything that it is.

Putting science in quotes doesn’t change the fact of this beautiful, elegant idea – try to understand the world in a way that is replicable and demonstrable to anyone with the right equipment. The claim that all science is driven by a greedy agenda is quite the egregious straw man by the way, many scientists work in academia where the pay scale is far, far lower than private industry.

BTW, the brain imaging studies showing activation of specific centers after acupuncture was retracted in June 2006 by Z. H. Cho himself and a number of its coauthors:

“Accumulating evidence suggests that the central nervous system is essential for processing these effects, via its modulation of the autonomic nervous system, neuro-immune system, and hormonal regulation. We, therefore, carried out a series of studies questioning whether there really is point specificity in acupuncture, especially vis-à-vis pain and acupuncture analgesic effects as we originally reported in our PNAS article, that had not yet been confirmed by other studies… Having concluded that there is no point specificity, at least for pain and analgesic effects, and that we no longer agree with the results in our PNAS article, the undersigned authors are retracting the article.
Z. H. Cho
S. C. Chung
H. J. Lee
E. K. Wong
B. I. Min”

Let me repeat the main idea, in case you miss it: “Having concluded that there is no point specificity, at least for pain and analgesic effects”

This is the reference:
Retraction in Cho ZH, Chung SC, Lee HJ, Wong EK, Min BI. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2006 Jul 5;103(27):1052.

You are just repeating what they teach in acupuncture schools to endocrine people:

-creating a false dichotomy between Eastern and Western medicine: There is no such a thing. There is only ONE medicine, just like there is only one physics or chemistry. Medicine is not literature or poetry, it a science

- Have you read Zhang Zhongjing in its original language, or are quoting what learned from somebody else? These texts are not acupuncture texts: they are manuals of Chinese Medical astrology: read the Wikipedia article on European Medical astrology, the same thing applies to Chinese medieval medicine:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_astrology

- the technology mass produce fine needles is only about 400 years old. Hua Tuo was using lancets. The word needle means many sharp objects (think of knitting needles). Hua Tuo did not do anything that he Greeks and Romans did not do.

-you obviously do not know about the science of pharmacognosy. 1/3 of our medicines come from natural products. Nobody disputes the fact that herbs have medicinal value. What is discussed in my article is the lunacy of granting the status of “primary care” to traditional healers, including herbalists. No one talked about herbs and their efficacy.

However, I don’t know if you are an herbalist or not; but please to not tell a post-MI patient to take boil willow bark and spoiled sweet clover-based animal feed — instead of taking aspirin and warfarin!

I assume you refer to the sensation of “de qui”? If I understand this correctly it refers to the sensation that a needle is being grasped by the tissues when you try to twirl it, or some such similar observation. Even if this was reliably associated with activation of a specific part of the brain, this could merely mean the activation of certain proprioceptive pathways. It does not automatically support TCM theories regarding the movement of “qi”.

The ephedrine story has some basis, Herbs contain pharmacologically active chemicals, many of which, including ephedrine, have unmistakable immediate effects that any culture can observe.

Your other “facts” are simply unconfirmed and unconfirmable claims at this stage.

I am impressed by some of the subjective outcomes reported with both “sham” and “real” acupuncture, but these can be explained by a variety of non-specific influences including placebo responses and biased patient reporting.

Fact: Ma huang, a Chinese herb to treat the common cold–used for centuries by these primitive savages who call it a wind-cold invasion–was so efficacious that we had to rip it off, ie pseudoephedrine, and ban its use from their medicine.

Completely, utterly, irrelevant. Assuming that your description is accurate, THEY DID NOT KNOW that it worked! You know, kind of like all those OTHER herbs which DON’T. Looking for herbs which can be turned into proper medicine is a completely standard part of scientific medicine, and doesn’t in any way vindicate TCM. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

Fact: entire villages were being wiped out in bacterial plague 1,800 years ago a man named Zhang Zhongjing complied a treatment protocol-acupuncture and herbal- that effectively cured them with acupuncture, moxabustion and herbs. Oh, but the Chinese documented this fact in their historical records, not the CDC, so again ill pretend your fact doesn’t exist.

[citation needed]

Fact: brain imaging studies have been conducted showing activation of specific centers when qi is obtained via acupuncture needle.

These have been discussed at length. They mean absolutely nothing, other than that people *gasp* can feel needles in their skin. That you have to resort to such claims – as opposed to, say, quality clinical trials showing that acupuncture actually, you know, DOES SOMETHING – actually is an excellent indication that it DOESN’T work.

Question – Since you are an obvious believer in sociology, you must have heard of something called “confounding factors”? You know what those are, right? Like famine, war, urbanization, forced one-child policies, etc?

Absolutely. Some can be controlled or accounted for. Incidentally, one of the reasons the life expectancy was so low was because of the massive famine brought about by Mao’s Great Leap Forward. Know why it failed? Massive numbers of Chinese people tried to exceed the steel production of the United Kingdom by creating furnaces in their backyards. Mao, an ignorant Chinese peasant who ended up as Emperor (as so many Emperors from China originally were) thought it was possible. Turns out it’s not. It is empirically impossible to produce high quality steel in a backyard furnace, and thinking you can doesn’t make it so. Mao’s many non-empirical policies resulted in massive suffering and death. Too bad he didn’t adopt a more evidence-based approach.

And again, what happened to the life expectancy when modern medicine became widespread in China, or for that matter, when smallpox was eliminated world-wide? I bet it went up.

Question – how much research have you done into the evidence of Chinese Medicine? Have you ever even had an acupuncture treatment from someone who really knows what they’re doing (not someone who is obviously pissed off at how horrible of a practitioner they are that they curse acupuncture and qi and go Judas on their tribe in hopes of being embraced by a new one.)??

I’ve done a fair amount of reading on the evidence base for acupuncture (very limited studies show questionable support for pain, nausea and perhaps fertility, but no proof it is effective for any specific maladies). Unless you can provide me with some good-quality studies supporting this point?

I’ve never died of scurvy, but some how I managed to eat enough vitamin C to avoid it. The nice thing about empiricism is one doesn’t have to experience something to study it.

Question – what is real medicine? The kind of medicine that really gives antibiotics to treat viruses? That real medicine?

Medicine is both art and science. The science gives a solid foundation upon which the art is built. Medicine can be badly practiced, or practiced in contradiction to what science says is an empirically justified practice. That does not indicate that the scientific foundation of medicine is flawed or worthless, only that it is complicated, that people are imperfect, and that we must improve.

Above all, it certainly doesn’t justify TCM. Further, if a practice of TCM were ever empirically justified, it would be incorporated into medicine. This has in fact happened – with acupuncture. There is an evidence base for its use (though problematic) and it is widely used as a part of modern medicine for the treatment of pain and nausea – despite the flaws in the empirical base, the transitory nature of its effects, the risks of infections and lung punctures and the complete lack of evidence base to support its theory.

Agreed. Because nationalism leads to interpersonal dualism, and it leads to things like Nazis. And Nazis do things like saying Jews are an inferior race, and that leads to companies like I.G. Farben Pharmaceutical Company lobbying the government to allow them to create their own factory-funded concentration camp where they can do all kinds of horrible things to them, not least of which was testing extracts of the Isatis plant (again a Chinese herb, being exploited inappropriately) on them as lab research, and then using that research to create the first commercially available antibiotic drug, sulfonamide, which is now used around the world by “doctors” to treat viral infections, wreaking havoc and destruction on the world…just as the Nazis had intended.

It also leads to, say, the Han Chinese believing they are the only civilized nation on the planet, and believing they have a right to take over the lands of anyone they share a border with. Like Tibet. I could also point to things like the Chinese being the first to use germ warfare, or the horrors committed by the Mongol Hordes, or Qui Shi Huang who was fond of burying scholars alive, or Mao Zedong who loved to be compared to Huang and killed 50 million or more people with his stupid policies, relentless politicking and distasteful cult of personality that prevented anyone from pointing out how stupid they were. Then there’s the Cultural Revolution, where the intelligent and educated were tortured, whipped, killed or exiled for…no good reason. Yes, people have done bad things. It’s happening now, it’s happened in the past. Yes, science as a method can be used to do bad things. That doesn’t change the fact that it is an extremely effective method, or that TCM has a very poor, almost nonexistent evidence base. All things should be evaluated on their own merit. I would say that the invention of sulfonamide was good thing, and to step out on a limb, I’m going to say the Nazis were a bad thing.

Plus, the Nazis intended to create antibiotic-resistant bacteria? Citation needed. Anyway, I’m not sure what your point is here. My point would be “humans, as descendants of chimpanzees, are very good at labeling ingroups and outgroups, and doing very bad things to the people in the latter category. Again, I hope that one day more people will realize what science has already told us – that all humans are of the same species, and should be treated with care and compassion.

Also, you lost the argument a while ago, but Godwin’s law.

mainstream, modern medicine is not science in this sense at all, it gives antibiotics for a virus. It gives infants Hep-B vaccinations, who are clearly high at-risk for intravenous drug use. And I know why doctors do this, too, it’s the same reason the TSA puts their hands in the pants of 80 year old grandmothers who are clearly at-risk of hijacking a plane, it’s all done to make everyone feel safe. It’s done to make people rely on the system as their daddy, even if its completely impotent at protecting anyone. That’s why the system needs to continue to exploit people with false-reality TV shows like “House”

Medicine is art and science. There is a difference between what should be done, and what is done. It’s too bad, but doctors have to deal with HMOs, irrational and uneducated patients, and the enormous volume of scientific literature produced on an annual basis.

The fact that you understand the difference between the science of medicine and the reality of medicine, yet still hold science accountable for the mistakes of practitioners and patients is a little…dumb I guess.

Also, the recognition that antibiotics are ineffective for viral infections – was that observation made by science, or traditional Chinese medicine practitioners? Is science only valid when it has bad things to say about itself?

But what are you exactly? Reductionist “science” would say you’re a meat-machine that hangs on a skeleton because that’s all they can observe. They say you’re a confabulation of matter undergoing chemical processes until all energy is expended, and that’s it, and then “you” degrade. And this “science” can only treat what it can observe, much like it treated its early Euro-American believers to a prescription of death when faced with the “incurable” scurvy. What you fail to realize is that your boring label is a manifestation of a boring view of nature. It can’t grasp vitalism, qi, life-force because it can’t quantify it. And therefore, it can’t cure problems that arise because of it.

It’s not really energy expenditure that causes us to die, it’s either the Hayflick limit, blood loss, or infection. Scurvy is no longer an untreatable condition, in fact it’s essentially absent, because we know what causes it. Native Americans didn’t know what caused scurvy, only how to treat it.

Yes, science can’t grasp vitalism because it can’t quantify it. Despite being able to measure the action of a single photon, or for that matter the sub-atomic particles that make up photons, it also has been unable to measure vitalism (and found no need to – vitalism has to date been completely unnecessary in understanding how biology works). The very claim that problems arise from qi is itself problematic. If it has real effects, it can be measured – initially imperfectly and gradually with increased precision. Despite efforts to do so, there is no evidence for a life force or energy. I’m sorry if this offends your preconceptions, but your offence does not change the fact that there is really no need to believe in qi aside from “someone who has been dead for a long time said it”. Do you also believe in Zeus? How about the ka of the Pharaohs? I don’t know why you find it so troubling that our ancestors may have been wrong.

As an example, I’d like you to think of all the zombies currently on SSRI’s. Now, “science” thinks it knows why all people get depressed–”a chemical imbalance”…then they propose a solution: let’s try to increase the extracellular level of serotonin by inhibiting its reuptake into the presynaptic blah, blah, blah…I’ll spare you the rest of your boring details of your boring label so that you won’t be bored by yourselves. Well, for one it’s theoretical that most SSRI’s even work that way because neurotransmitter activity isn’t easily measured…but that still doesn’t stop what you worship as science from pushing these pills onto everyone–all because you, in complete arrogance, have the innate need to act as their savior even when it’s clear you have no idea what you’re doing.

I have friends and family members who are on SSRIs and are grateful to be elevated out of the crushing despair they used to live in for no objective reason. One is currently learning to be a carpenter, the other visiting their grandchildren in Australia (airplanes – brought to you by science!). In both cases their doctors have supported them ceasing to take the pills. In both cases, careful follow-up found that they felt better on them, and the side effects were worth the elevation in mood. SSRIs do work for some people in some situations (generally major depression). There is empirical evidence for this. Even if it is not understood why or how it works, it still works and my friends and family members are better for them. Apparently they can’t live up to your standard for an SSRI-free life, but fortunately they don’t have to.

Well, I’m sure reductionists will be shocked by this, but emotions, feelings and what ancient people felt as a “soul” exists, even though your ability to observe this fact is as impotent as all the men you put on SSRI’s. And because you lack the ability to differentiate the varying emotional hues experienced by the soul, you streamline and standardize diagnosis, medicine, and put everyone on an SSRI, and all because you have no clue what you’re doing. My point is people don’t want to be treated like a machine, they wanted to be treated like a person with an illness that happens to speak to them on the subjective level, the human level. I don’t blame you for not being able to see my larger point…afterall, you are a reductionist.

Yep, emotions and feelings exist. We can tell what part of the brain creates them. Again, no need for a soul or qi, just a complicated bundle of cells.

Incidentally, no doctor I have ever seen has ever tried to put me on an antidepressant. I’m extremely lucky in this regard. It appears you have some sort of objection to the limited amount of time and lack of attention to bedside manner that forces most doctors to be less than ideal in their standard of patient care. I agree, this is a problem. Please write to your congressperson to try to do something about it.

Finally, I see your larger point, I just think it’s wrong. Life is fascinating enough that I feel no lack at the recognition there is no soul. We are probably just meat sacks, but very interesting meat sacks. I similarly feel no lack in my life despite not believing in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, Zeus and a teapot existing in an orbit somewhere between Mars and Saturn. Or the Flying Spaghetti Monster for that matter. You are free to believe in a soul, lots of people do, but it won’t make medicine any more or less effective.

My whole point was that if one denies an entire culture’s historical heritage, with regard to healthcare because you lack the ability to measure their art and would rather accuse their culture of being gullible for centuries than admit the inadequacies of your measuring tools, then, yes it’s racist.

I have yet to see proof that TCM actually produces measurable improvements in health. Self-report is not really worth much here. Would you be comfortable with Big Pharma proclaiming antibiotics to be safe and effective because they asked people with bacterial infection if they felt better? If TCM including acupuncture have genuine effects they can be measured. If it’s just placebo, that can be measured too. The art of medicine should be based on the science of medicine, because otherwise it comes down to assertion and opinion and that’s a terrible way to study anything.

You’re succumbing to xenophobia in the literal meaning of the word because you’re scared their culture might be right.

I have no problem with TCM being right. It would be beneficial in fact, more tools for medicine to draw upon. I just don’t think there’s adequate evidence TCM is effective as an approach. Further, I don’t think the Chinese somehow managed to produce a meaningful medical system when every other culture in the world failed to do so until the advent of empiricism. Positive racism is still racism. The nice thing about science is that it transcends culture – anyone can practice it. China’s history of technological accomplishments is startling in its breadth and depth, but that history is still dwarfed by the technological and theoretical accomplishments since the advent of empiricism.

I’ll also point to the sudden and dramatic increases in lifespan with the advent of modern medicine in China, though there are numerous confounds (Mao’s disastrous policies for instance, but also the fact that China was a geographically large, culturally homogeneous, centrally-controlled country with considerable internal transportation abilities, thus having the ability to offset regional famine).

You’re no different than the arrogant European colonists who scoffed at Native Americans as “primitive” and imprisoned them on land you robbed through this rationalization and then died of scurvy.

Amusingly, the empirical study of scurvy was conducted by a European, one James Lind. The Native Americans weren’t any smarter than the Europeans, they just had better resources and experience in living in the local conditions. Also, I believe the Europeans survived scurvy once they were told that pine needles boiled in water was an effective treatment.

And all the while the “primitive” American Indian cut open buffalo and ate their adrenal cortex, a gland which arrogant European “science” hadn’t even discovered yet (it was just a fatty deposit atop the kidneys!) and certainly hadn’t discovered that it contained the richest concentration of vitamin C of all organs, no, you guys just wrecked the American Indians, made their lives miserable, and then died in shameful ignorance.

If we’re comparing the horrors that one nation or culture can inflict upon another, how are the Tibetans doing these days? You’ll note that Canada, Australia and America are now stumbling over themselves in an ill-fated and ill-considered attempt to right history, in large part by attempting to preserve indigenous cultures in bottles (as if there were ever a culture that survived unchanged by outside influences). All cultures have histories that contain moments of shame. Thankfully empirical research is revealing just how similar humans are to each other. Hopefully we’ll stop seeing each other as different races and start seeing each other as equally human.

Oh I have no doubt that “science” will certainly put mother nature over the wrack and torture her secrets from her, squeezing and sucking whatever blood that reductionism can wrap its tentacles and teeth around, spit out the rest, then proclaim itself the savior of humanity while tossing mother nature’s corpse by the wayside. And the people cheer when given their pseudophed to treat the common cold, and the system arrogantly takes the credit, but then bans the herb it was derived from…a Chinese herb those foolish primitives somehow miraculously guessed right about for centuries–ma huang. Oh, it doesn’t stop there! It steals all use of the herb from them so they can claim credit, then proclaims Chinese treatments for the common cold ineffective later on, after they’ve raped and pillaged, stolen and left them with nothing.

After all that, can you point to any evidence that ma huang is an effective treatment for the common cold? Also, naturalistic fallacy aside, note that humans are part of nature, and dying of infectious disease is also natural. The idea that living in harmony with nature is somehow better is a questionable one, certainly not one I would embrace. I’d rather not succumb to infectious disease, I’d rather have access to painkillers that don’t eat through my stomach lining, and I’d rather my wife not have a one in four chance of dying in childbirth. You are welcome to a natural life, with its blind, cruel evolution and endless struggle for survival. I’ll take purified, standardized medications, television, cars, central heating and bacon, thanks.

But that’s a side issue. My point about treating viral infections with antibiotics was really that proponents of modern, mainstream medicine have no business declaring themselves as the only valid treatment option when they do something that ridiculous…and when there’s another system actually getting it right.

Again, proof please. Modern medicine is a self-reflective entity that uses empirical evidence to improve itself in a public fashion. TCM is doing its best to avoid testing its ideas and having to change its practices. It’s not magically effective because it’s old, nor because it’s Chinese. Again, effective treatments can be tested for efficacy. Claiming you don’t have to because you’re Chinese is simply positive racism.