Aug 19 2009
Subtle Acupuncture Propaganda
Damn, I’ve got my semantics-undies in a bunch again. I was attempting to read an online article about research into acupuncture, and couldn’t get past the first sentence. See if you detect anything bogus about it. It’s subtle; but it’s there:
Acupuncture has been used in East-Asian medicine for thousands of years to treat pain, possibly by activating the body’s natural painkillers. But how it works at the cellular level is largely unknown.
The above strikes me as propaganda. Perhaps unwittingly, the writer advances the party-line and publicizes a viewpoint. Acupuncture has been used thousands of years to treat pain . . .
Um . . . study after study has shown that “real acupuncture” is no more effective than sham acupuncture. Meridians . . . irrelevant. The needle penetrating the skin . . . irrelevant. So what has-been/is effective is for acupuncture-like treatments to activate some sort of placebo response. And the thousands of years part — what, is that supposed to make my mind resonate with that line from an old television commercial, aha, it’s an ancient Chinese secret!?
