I learned something new


I already knew that acupuncture had failed to show significant effects in clinical trials, but this video also mentions some things about the history of acupuncture in China — it was rejected by Chinese scholars long ago, and was only revived as a tool for propaganda.

The comments on the video are amazing. A lot of people don’t like the guy’s beard, but there is also this sentiment I’ve heard many times before:

Your are such a jerk. You are making fun about thousands of people who just believe in something. Is that so wrong ? Even if its just placebo, who cares ? Just let people be happy. They arent hurt by acupuncture, so just let them do what they want. Because of these videos I dont wanna follow this channel anymore.

Spoken like someone who really doesn’t care about the truth at all. Note that the speaker isn’t taking away anyone’s acupuncture needles…he’s merely saying the facts, that acupuncture is junk science.

Comments

  1. Dreaming of an Atheistic Newtopia says

    Plus the idea that this sort of nonsense doesn’t hurt people is just false.

  2. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    They arent hurt by acupuncture, so just let them do what they want.

    They are not hurt by acupuncture in the same way they are not hurt by any medicine that doesn’t work… except when they use it instead of real medicine. People die because they didn’t want to use real medicine and instead chose something “harmless” like acupuncture.
    Just a couple of days ago, a boy here died only a couple of weeks after he was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma because his parents refused chemotherapy and instead wanted to sure him with Simoncini therapy (basically, baking soda) and lemons and other “natural remedies”.
    Are lemons dangerous? Nope. Are you going to die if you try to treat a deadly illness with lemon juice? Yes.
    Same goes for acupuncture.

    And then there is the financial side. People who choose alternative medicine over real one will often go from one failed attemp to another and to another, throwing money at snake oil peddlers, money they sometimes don’t have to throw away. So in the end they are in debt and still sick.

  3. says

    That was interesting, and I didn’t know about the rejection by Chinese scholars, so thank you Joshua. One of my great grandmothers decided on acupuncture for arthritis pain, back in the ’70s. I had to walk her to the clinic and back. She always claimed it helped a great deal with the pain, but what actually helped the pain was the rather large amount of fruit-juice flavoured vodka she drank after the appointments.

    I think part of the problem is that people with pain issues feel pressured to do something, anything. I’ve been dealing with pain for a long time now, and that pressure is fucking everywhere, especially when the pain is acute – “you should go to the doctor” “you should try this” “You should take this” “have tried ____?” and so on. It never ends, it doesn’t stop. Apparently, it’s unacceptable to live with pain, and cope in the best way possible.

  4. rietpluim says

    Your are such a jerk. You are making fun about thousands of people who just believe in something. Is that so wrong ?

    No, there is nothing wrong with making fun of silly beliefs.

    Even if its just placebo, who cares ?

    I do. And many other skeptics I know. Because we care for people. When they are ill we’d prefer them to get better.

    Just let people be happy.

    Don’t you think they’d be much happier with medicine that actually works?

    They arent hurt by acupuncture,

    Oh yes they are.

    so just let them do what they want.

    Well, nobody is prohibiting seeing an acupuncturist.

    Because of these videos I dont wanna follow this channel anymore.

    No problem. You are free to leave when you please. You are also a whine and you won’t be missed.

  5. says

    The retracting sham acupuncture needle idea is pretty cool. What is not cool is the UK spending $40 million per year on the real stuff.

    Like all alternative medicine and related pseudoscience everyone is hurt but allowing its continued use in a professional healthcare setting, where it is pitted as an actual alternative to medicine. There is the obvious problem that alternative medicine could prevent a patient from taking a medication/treatment that is actually proven to work, and this is bad enough.

    But the true horror of the activities of people who condone acupuncture, homeopathy, anti-vaxx, anti GMO etc is the continued acceptance in society of an anti scientific method approach to evidence evaluation, or lack there of. By pitting the activity which has not been confirmed to work by using the scientific method (eg homeopathy) against an activity which has (eg vaccines) the continued myth that science is just one method of many justifiable routes to the truth persists(I assume there are no postmodernists on here?). For example we have a homeopathy hospital in the UK not because there is a body of peer reviewed literature and RCT’s in its favour, but because some people like the idea that it works. And it isn’t up to science to decide if homeopathy is a valid form of “medication”. Only it is up to science to decide, it’s just that we haven’t educated enough people in our society about the scientific method, clinical trials etc.

    Another good example is arthroscopic Knee Surgery for those with osteoarthritis, this has been proven time and again to offer no benefit and I suspect a society more able to question and investigate the evidence of offer would not allow such a procedure to continue. There are of course many other examples from the big pharma industry where drugs no better than placebo or the current gold standard are “sold” (possibly literally in the US) to patients as the next great thing.

    Without getting too rambling I will end by saying there is a link between letting pseudoscience enter medicine and letting “real” science get away with poorly conducted or fudged research. If people don’t understand why acupuncture shouldn’t be used what chance do they have of deciphering a paper from big pharma where all the tricks in the book have been used to produce the required result. Providing people with the mindset to question stuff like acupuncture would hopefully mean a general increase in scientific literacy.

  6. sayke says

    Does anyone know if there’s a difference between acupuncture and dry needling? My physiotherapist, who is fucking awesome at her job, has recently started swearing that dry needling is very effective in relieving muscle spasm. She otherwise has no truck with woo, and says she’s seen studies and done professional training, but it’s hard to verify this myself when I’m face down on a table. It kinda leaves me in the position of feeling stupid for saying “But people on the internet said…”

  7. says

    Sayke @ 8:

    Does anyone know if there’s a difference between acupuncture and dry needling?

    There’s a little, but not all that much. Read here for more info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_needling

    Dry needling started as a trigger point therapy, and while I don’t know much about it, I have wondered, because on a personal front, having a thumb or knuckle (or handball, if I’m doing myself) pressed deeply into a painful trigger point does help, when nothing else does. That’s the extent of my helpfulness, which isn’t all that helpful. Sorry.

  8. A Masked Avenger says

    The interesting thing to me is that Chinese scholars figured out that it doesn’t work. We tend to overestimate the credulity and stupidity of people in the past. They weren’t as stupid as we often suppose. They were even capable of competent empiricism, despite the lack of refinement that characterizes the modern scientific method.

  9. says

    sayke

    From the cochrane review of acupuncture and dry needling as a treatments for lower back pain.

    “Thirty-five RCTs covering 2861 patients were included in this systematic review. There is insufficient evidence to make any recommendations about acupuncture or dry-needling for acute low-back pain.”

  10. slithey tove (twas brillig (stevem)) says

    Because of these videos I dont wanna follow this channel anymore.

    Thank you.
    Always amused to read someone loudly announce “I don;t care.[] I’m leaving NOW!!!!!” Even if the desire to announce is to motivate some kind of difference to be made, if you leave, how will you know the difference got made? I futiley ask “why announce? why not just leave?”

    armchair analysis time: people get too invested in Virtual as more than Real. Treating internet video views as if the videographer is in the same room as the viewer, so if the viewer shouts he’s leaving, the videographer will be hurt and try to get the offended to return. Internet is not that real, no matter how much one would like it to be REAL, it is virtual. In other words. people seem to treat internet blogs like penpals, that are eager to see one’s particualr responses. So think it is “polite” to announce “never writing again” to relieve them from anticipating one’s next response. Unfortunately, that is how I sometimes see my participation in Pharyngula. Penpals, eager to see my response to the latest post or comment. Excuse me for sharing this moment of self-analysis. (I know you are eager to read my scrambled thought ;-) Consider this some personal therapy….

  11. Sastra says

    mclarenm23 #7 wrote:

    Without getting too rambling I will end by saying there is a link between letting pseudoscience enter medicine and letting “real” science get away with poorly conducted or fudged research.

    Very perceptive analysis. I’d also go further however and argue that there is also a link between privileging the concept of religious faith and letting pseudoscience enter medicine.

    Religious beliefs are fact claims, not values, lifestyles, race, gender, preferences, hobbies, or something else which falls into the category of personal identity. In a diverse and liberal society, the latter are respected by a live-and-let-live attitude; the former are respected by being questioned and doubted. By granting spiritual truths a free pass from criticism and critique, it becomes all too easy for ANY subjectively-verified deeply-held belief to merit the same treatment — all in the name of being an open-minded, accepting fellow citizen. But protecting ideas from dissent isn’t liberal; it’s a deeply conservative attitude.

    And it’s no coincidence I think that most forms of alt med — including acupuncture — contain some underlying supernatural component, such as a life-force or cosmic prana. One of the most important ways to promote scientific-thinking then is to try to undermine the idea that faith is a humble virtue to be respected, instead of an arrogant vice we all ought to fight against. An outspoken atheism is thus connected to outspoken skepticism of all the “nice” ideas we’d like to be true.

  12. says

    Acupuncture causes measurable financial harm, and not just to the person receiving the treatment. The IRS lists it as a deductible medical expense, which means taxpayers in the USA (and not just Britain, as was mentioned) are on the hook for part of the cost.

    Payments for acupuncture treatments or inpatient treatment at a center for alcohol or drug addiction, for participation in a smoking-cessation program and for drugs to alleviate nicotine withdrawal that require a prescription

    Quoted from “Topic 502 – Medical and Dental Expenses” on irs.gov.

  13. says

    Regarding harm from acupuncture, there’s a non-trivial risk of infections, given how acupuncturists are usually quite sloppy with their sterile procedure.

  14. Sastra says

    What’s now called ‘acupuncture’ wasn’t necessarily used in ancient China in its current form. It used to be strongly connected to the concept of the ‘four humors.’ Apparently modern Westerners have looked at ancient paintings of horses being bled through large tubes and called that ‘acupuncture.’

    The definition of what constitutes acupuncture also went all over the place even in relatively modern times. Here’s an enlightening passage from a book called Thirty Years in Moukden. 1883-1913. Being the Experiences and Recollections of Dugald Christie, C. M.G.:

    Chinese doctors own that they know nothing at all of surgery. They cannot tie an artery, amputate a finger or perform the simplest operation. The only mode of treatment in vogue which might be called surgical is acupuncture, practised for all kinds of ailments. The needles are of nine forms, and are frequently used red-hot, and occasionally left in the body for days. Having no practical knowledge of anatomy, the practitioners often pass needles into large blood vessels and important organs, and immediate death has sometimes resulted. A little child was carried to the dispensary presenting a pitiable spectacle. The doctor had told the parents that there was an excess of fire in its body, to let out which he must use cold needles, so he had pierced the abdomen deeply in several places. The poor little sufferer died shortly afterwards. For cholera the needling is in the arms. For some children’s diseases, especially convulsions, the needles are inserted under the nails. For eye diseases they are often driven into the back between the shoulders to a depth of several inches. Patients have come to us with large surfaces on their backs sloughing by reason of excessive treatment of this kind with instruments none too clean.

    Ancient wisdom. Who are we to criticize? Yeah.

  15. says

    Sastra

    Great points in post #13. Religious beliefs and the world of the supernatural are other areas where the understanding of evidence and its analysis are greatly lacking.

    I particularly like this line from you;

    “By granting spiritual truths a free pass from criticism and critique, it becomes all too easy for ANY subjectively-verified deeply-held belief to merit the same treatment ”

    The idea of making personal beliefs untouchable is pretty dangerous especially when it comes to deciding what treatments to offer.

  16. slithey tove (twas brillig (stevem)) says

    “By granting spiritual truths a free pass from criticism and critique, it becomes all too easy for ANY subjectively-verified deeply-held belief to merit the same treatment ”

    The idea of making personal beliefs untouchable is pretty dangerous especially when it comes to deciding what treatments to offer.

    I’ve been hearing that a lot recently, especially down Kentucky way. While there, not “dangerous” per se, but pretty offensively arrogant.

    ugh. sorry again. yet another attempted derail. sorry.

  17. Athywren - Frustration Familiarity Panda says

    Even if its just placebo, who cares ?

    *shrug*
    Maybe the people who’d turn to acupuncture to cure their cancer? I imagine they’d probably want it to have real medicinal benefits.

    If people are getting acupuncture treatments for purely entertainment-based reasons then it’s probably fine for it to be nothing but placebo, but if they actually want it to make them better, they should probably go for some form of medicine.

  18. freemage says

    A Masked Avenger
    9 September 2015 at 9:10 am
    The interesting thing to me is that Chinese scholars figured out that it doesn’t work. We tend to overestimate the credulity and stupidity of people in the past. They weren’t as stupid as we often suppose. They were even capable of competent empiricism, despite the lack of refinement that characterizes the modern scientific method.

    It’s not entirely coincidental that many of these ancient societies that are popularly considered to have been too stupid to science properly are also more often than not located someplace other than ancient Europe, and thus had different skin-tones than your average Gaul. This reached a truly appalling level in that indie darling film I cannot remember the name of that insisted that the Native Americans could literally not see Columbus’ ships because they couldn’t comprehend what they were looking at (as opposed to looking at a big wooden floating thing and going, “That’s a big fucking canoe. Check it out, the wind gets caught in the big blankets.”)

  19. Sastra says

    freemage #20 wrote:

    This reached a truly appalling level in that indie darling film I cannot remember the name of that insisted that the Native Americans could literally not see Columbus’ ships because they couldn’t comprehend what they were looking at

    I think you’re thinking of “What the (Bleep) Do We Know?” A truly horrible piece of drek I’ve never actually seen, but have read and heard many reports of … so I don’t have to, I hope.

    My friends are great fans of this movie because they love the idea that we “create our own realities,” taking the deepity from the true but trivial into the ludicrous and (as you note) insulting. For some reason they don’t think that putting nonwestern and/or indigenous people on a high pedestal where they can’t understand ‘science’ or ‘reason’ because they’re too elevated into mystical, spiritual ‘ways of knowing’ is a form of racism. It’s not racism. It’s the opposite of racism. They’re intrinsically better than us, see?

  20. Gregory Greenwood says

    Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought @ 4;

    They are not hurt by acupuncture in the same way they are not hurt by any medicine that doesn’t work… except when they use it instead of real medicine. People die because they didn’t want to use real medicine and instead chose something “harmless” like acupuncture.

    Quoted for truth. The acupuncture needles themselves may be mostly harmless, but the lies told about the efficacy of acupuncture in treating serious and life threatening conditions kills people. It takes immense, downright willful ignorance or an ulterior motive to ignore that.

  21. zibble says

    Was anyone else amused by the commenter saying, basically, “what’s the harm in randomly shoving needles into your body?”

    I’d want to ask, “what’s the harm in knowing if a procedure doesn’t actually work?”

  22. Lofty says

    I’d want to ask, “what’s the harm in knowing if a procedure doesn’t actually work?”

    Well, clearly, knowing that acupuncture is useless may harm the practitioner’s take home pay.

  23. zetopan says

    “Because of these videos I dont wanna follow this channel anymore.”
    One response to the above would be to thank that person for increasing the intelligence for comment readers.

  24. says

    @Sastra

    I think you’re thinking of “What the (Bleep) Do We Know?” A truly horrible piece of drek I’ve never actually seen, but have read and heard many reports of … so I don’t have to, I hope.

    I saw a fairly good youtube series that debunks that movie piece by piece. Probably less painful to watch than the movie itself. It was actually fairly funny. And, yes, it did have that ship part!

  25. F.O. says

    Tried acupuncture once, with a guy enthusiastically recommended by a friend.
    Could not sleep for two days afterwards.

    But anecdotes are no data so, piling up on what @LykeX wrote #15, acupuncture does carry very direct risks: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23511615

    The repeated and/or inappropriate use of an acupuncture needle carries the risk of infections. Amongst others, AIDS and hepatitis have been transmitted. Acupuncture needles may also traumatise tissues and organs. Pneumothorax is the most frequent complication caused in this way. Finally, needles may break and fragments can be dislodged into distant organs.

    Still, things were a bit more complicated than how Joshua describes them.
    Regarding the Mao story (which I believe) there are few sources collected by Orac: http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2013/10/25/chairman-mao-inventor-of-traditional-chinese-medicine/

    @A Masked Avenger #10: Thank you, that’s a point I had never considered.

  26. martha says

    It gets worse than accupunture. About 30 years ago I worked in an ice cream shop with a young Taiwanese man. Scooping very hard ice cream all the time hurts your wrist and one day the young man came in with bandaid and explained that his parents had taken him to a traditional doctor for the wrist pain. The doctor had treated the problem by burning a (mystically significant?) spot on his arm. Also from being in China in 2012, I remember on several occasions seeing shirtless men with parallel columns of round bruises on their backs, indicating that they’d been cupped.

  27. Knabb says

    @ Freemage, Sastra (20, 21)

    That would absolutely be “What the [Bleep] do we know”. I had the misfortune of seeing that piece of junk in high school, complements of the IB program being more than a little woo infested. The allegedly invisible ships were focused on for quite a while, though not as much as the mystical way in which ice crystals look different if you freeze the water while feeling different emotions. The magnification levels were also obviously different, but actually taking note of that little detail would have prevented segueing into a textbook “noble savage” rendition.

  28. leerudolph says

    martha@30:

    The doctor had treated the problem by burning a (mystically significant?) spot on his arm.

    Moxibustion, I think.

  29. thebookofdave says

    @richardelguru #3

    I tried acupuncture once…. and now I have to go to the gas station at least once a week to top up my air pressure.

    Acupuncture only unblocks the flow of energy, but it also relieves the stress of a high-pressure environment. Take that, skeptics!

  30. Georgia Sam says

    Ineffective treatments don’t harm anybody? Hello! Read this very carefully, & let me know if it’s unclear in any way: When people pay hard-earned money for something that is worthless, they are financially harmed. What part of that concept don’t you understand?

  31. Menyambal - torched by an angel says

    So how does sticking a needle in a meridian unblock the flow of chi ? I unblocked a tube today, by shoving a toothpick through it, but the toothpick was aligned with the flow, and I could see the tube.

    So Mao brought back traditional medicine as cultural propaganda? That makes so much sense.

  32. rietpluim says

    @Menymabal #35 – Mao didn’t have the resources to develop a real medical sector, and he didn’t care much for the well being of the Chinese people, so it’s not very surprising. What surprises me is that so many people in the west are so gullible.

  33. rietpluim says

    For clarification: I didn’t mean that “people in the west” are supposed to be less gullible than the rest of the world. I should have written “people who did not live under Mao’s administration”.

  34. mostlymarvelous says

    Caine

    Dry needling started as a trigger point therapy, and while I don’t know much about it, I have wondered, because on a personal front, having a thumb or knuckle (or handball, if I’m doing myself) pressed deeply into a painful trigger point does help, when nothing else does.

    Back in the days when I had more money I spent a smallish fortune on various forms of trigger point therapies. Physio 2 or 3 times a week. One physio got a bit bored with just standing there and waiting, waiting, waiting for the feel of a muscle relaxing. There just wasn’t enough time in a half hour session to attend to all the various wrecked body parts.

    Suggested I try an “acupuncturist” who was also a doctor. Turned out it wasn’t _real_ acupuncture – no way would I have tolerated needles anyway. She did use the non-touching moxibustion from time to time. By and large, she stuck to laser therapy. This has the great advantage of being super quick as well as super effective – and no skin penetrating needles. It has the additional advantage of working quite well, unlike “real” acupuncture.

    For those of us with chronic pain, this is good but it isn’t all that wonderful. Relief can last from a couple of hours to a couple of days. Therefore you need to live with someone who can do the therapy if you want continuing pain relief. Otherwise you have a tedious calendar crowded with hours written off to travel, parking, getting to and from appointments along with a huge hit to your budget.

    As the physio initially explained, trigger point therapies use anything to stimulate the necessary muscular response. Ice, heat, pressure, vibration, laser – obviously they’d use massage if the pain triggered didn’t put the patient out of reach due to relocation to the ceiling.

    Looking at how much I spent during the worst 10 years of this – while I was also trying to live with a desk job that made the problem worse all day every day – I would have been much better off with spending/ borrowing however many $$$ I’d have needed to instal a hot tub, maybe a small sauna, at my own house. Total cost would have been much, much less. Total number of pain free hours/days would have been much more. And other people could have enjoyed it as well.