“Satisfying needles filling the pleasure”?or speak English with Asian accent: “Certified needles feeling the pressure” ? working both ways.
[Image: Portrait of a lady in acupuncture therapy at the day spa. Source: http://www.123rf.com]
A graduation ceremony on Sunday (5 September) in Auckland may offer a better interpretation of the phrases “adaptation”, “settlement” or even “assimilation” in the context of preparing migrants to enter the workforce.
A group of 33 students were awarded a Bachelor’s degree in Health Science (Acupuncture). It is believed that it is the first time in New Zealand that such a degree has ever been made available. As Paddy McBride, President of NZ Register of Acupuncturists, rightly observed that it is difficult to call which one is harder: for westerners to learn acupuncture or for those highly-qualified Chinese practitioners to learn, again, acupuncture in New Zealand but in English.
It is a challenging journey for both. But for the graduates – largely Chinese – many of them were qualified in China after their compulsory 5-year medical school training at universities. At least one of them held a personal chair in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and many others had practised for more than a decade before coming to New Zealand.
Therefore, to get such a degree in New Zealand is truly special and their achievement is awesome.
Acupuncture gained attention in the United States and subsequently in the western world when US President Nixon visited China in 1972. Traveling with the President was New York Times reporter James Reston (the famous reporter who had won the Pulitzer Prize twice) who underwent an emergency appendectomy. It was a conventional surgery at the (conveniently named) “Anti-Imperialist Hospital” in Beijing at that time but his post-operative pain was treated by a Dr Li with acupuncture. Reston was so impressed that he wrote about acupuncture upon returning to the United States.
In 1997, the U.S. National Institutes of Health formally recognisd acupuncture as a mainstream medicine healing option with papers documenting the procedure’s safety and efficacy for treating a range of health conditions. While awareness of acupuncture is growing, many in the world are still unfamiliar with both the theory and practice of acupuncture and therefore the ignorance and intrinsic prejudice to some extent.
The American experience has been helpful. When treading an uncharted territory, particularly in relation to something oriental such as TCM, it is normally the case that Kiwis would follow the footsteps of Aussies and Aussies Pommies and Pommies, Uncle Sam.
In that regard, the “English patient” (the patient who spoke English to be accurate) in 1972 helped.
My colleague Dr Rajen Prasad and I also extended our congratulations to New Zealand School of Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine, one of the oldest such institutions in NZ, providing education on TCM since 1994. Their commitment to providing a diverse education that honours traditions and modern approaches is particularly encouraging and forward-looking.
Australia has now implemented relevant legislation in the field of TCM. New Zealand lags behind and we will need to do something about it.
Outstanding. Always pays to know a good acupuncturist in town – especially one who is steeped in the traditional approach and theories as opposed to the westernised physio version of ‘needling’.
I find this outrageous. Accupuncture offers no demonstrable health benefits and it is devoid of science. It’s risible therefore that we endorse this nonsense (and it is patently obviously nonsense) with an academic qualification in health science. This is a class issue. Poor people and immigrants struggle to access care. Giving credibility to this nonsense perpetuates those iniquities. Those if us who can afford it go to credible, evidenced scientifically-based medicine. The poor get to access this hopeless placebo treatment. As a labour movement we should stomping this crazy rubbish out and ensuring people access proper care. Highly ironic you should remember Mao’s role in this. He cynically used nonsense traditional medicine to give the poor of China a feeling that they were getting treatment from “barefoot doctors”. Meanwhile the elite continued to use stuff that worked…you know, medicine! I think Labour’s association with this is appalling.
@Unpleasantly Odouriferous
Can’t put it better then that so I won’t even bother
Oh give your scientism self righteousness a break, conventional medical treatments fail the majority of people (ever see a research study where more than 50% of people taking a drug achieved a permanent fix?)
Western medicine is dangerous enough as it is (e.g. I have a friend who was on herceptin and the drug destroyed over half her heart function) so why are you blaming people for wanting alternatives
Another joke since going the complementary and alternative medicine route means a patient has to pay out of their own pocket its the elite who tend to be able to afford to use it.
The British Royal family is a case in point.
Actually in TCM, western medicine is known for being extremely dispersive and toxic on the constitution.
Ask anyone who has been on a few courses of antibiotics over a few month period and they will know exactly what the TCM doctors are talking about.
Please try again.
All bow down at the mighty temple of western medicine with its, maybe 200 year history.
UO, how many studies have been done on accupuncture?
Oh boy, let’s just say that there’s room for both in our diverse world
Yeah, science ptfff, what’s that ever done for us! Immigrants deserve first-class care not magic. One of the benefits of moving here is that you can access safe, well-evidenced therapies. Labour should be ensuring that access is maintained not being associated with this legitimation of crank rubbish. What’s next a science degree in homeopathy?!
1) Remember that medicine is an applied stochastic technology. It is not science or scientific in the same way that physics/chemistry/biology/math are “pure sciences”.
2) So you would make a value judgement upfront and disenfranchise immigrants from what they may very well see as “first-class care” – the kind of care they use traditionally and are most comfortable with?
What is this, the next round of neo-colonial “we know whats best for you, our ways are superior to your ways”?
Frankly conventional medicine does not work for a lot of people and causes a lot of injuries.
So why do you have a problem with people wanting something else.
UO, I had acupuncture in London when I lived there a few years ago, from my GP. I got it free on the National Health, for the recurring bouts of migraines I was having at the time. My GP said he used acupuncture according to a fairly westernised approach. i.e. he administered it focused on specific symptoms/conditions, according to scientific evidence as to where to put the needles, so that they would work best for that condition.
For migraines he put the needles in a specific point on the top of my feet. I had a course of regular treatments over successive weeks. The migraines did stop, and I haven’t been as bothered by the since. I went for a long time (years) after that without any migraines. My GP said he got the best results for migraines.
In contrast, I understand that the traditional Chinese approach is to treat the whole body, with needles in various places throughout the body.
Two and a half decades ago, while speaking with GPs who were incorporating acupuncture in their practice in Australia, I pooh-poohed the practice. Since then, I’ve read many articles in the British Medical Journal and have also referred to Acupuncture in Medicine (http://aim.bmj.com/site/about/index.xhtml) and other peer-reviewed periodicals on the subject.
I’d suggest others, who haven’t quite caught up with the knowledge and research in the area, try to keep themselves better informed.
Homeopathy actually works, I’m sure it could be proved by science if somebody bothered to look into it.
Spud, people have looked at homeopathy. Giving pure water to patients (which is in effect what homeopathy does) has no effect. Who’d have thunk it.
Carol, lots of GPs believe all kinds of stuff. That doesn’t make it right.
Gary, I don’t want to get into a bidding war with you about the evidence. But the consensus of opinion is that properly constructed clinical trials of acupuncture shows it’s no better than placebo. There can be a flurry of excitement when one journal concludes that acupuncture is slightly better than placebo – but then as you unpick the methodology of these studies you realise the trial or analysis was flawed.
Loota, people can use whatever nonsense therapy they want. What I object to is the State getting involved and giving this nonsense credibility – like approving a course. If the State endorses something, it ought to be safe and effective. I agree that the health system should try to make people comfortable and there’s a long way to go on that front. But peddling magic instead of genuine healthcare is not a solution. And just because it’s “traditional” or “natural” doesn’t make it exempt from robust analysis.
I agree with this completely.
Now…what about some funds to support some research scholarships…
Already been ample research into acupuncture. Sorry,but it is crap. Just like homeopathy.
@Unpleasantly Odouriferous/kjt That is bold of you to say that there could be no wisdom in a study of health that goes back thousands of years coming from a culture much richer and older than ours.
That aside, I know of plenty examples of acupuncture working. I had some relatives who were trying for a long time to have a baby but couldn’t, the woman got acupuncture and then got the baby. Another relative I knew had some issues with her sinuses, she got acupuncture and then it was gone for life.
So called “western medicine” is largely based on “lies, damned lies, and statistics”.
There is little or no genuine science involved in medical research.
I hold no brief for other forms of medical treatment.
I am merely pointing out that “western medicine” is based on very doubtful premises.
There is little in medical practice that can be justified by hard nosed science.
Very few medical practitioners understand science.
I would be very careful about using “western medicine” as a benchmark.
Some of western medicine practises are useful and helpful.
Some are very dubious.
OBTW the “ancientness” of a practise does not guarantee efficacy.
“Giving pure water to patients (which is in effect what homeopathy does) has no effect. Who’d have thunk it.” It’s not pure water it’s plant extracts and it does have an effect, which is why science should actually have a decent look at why it works. Many medicines derive from natural things – penicillan, st johns wort, tea tree oil (for fungus), aloe vera, ginseng,arnica cream mmmmm?
I don’t know much about this (I don’t really know much about anything to be honest hehehe)
But I say if you honestly thinks it works for you then go for it (placebo medicine can do wonders)
To be honest I don’t think it works that much but hey, a lot of drug out there don’t work either!
I wouldn’t do it becuase I have a fear of needles
hehehe
and I doubt it wouldn’t do anything.
But I know some people who swear it works. It the money, they can spend it how they like
@Spud
Consider what chemicals, heavy metals, excess medicines etc etc are in a glass of tap water
If homeopathy did what it actually claims then all we’d need to do is drink a glass of tap water a day (except in Christchurch unless its boiled first) and we’d all be fine
Spud
I think you are confusing herbal therapies with homeopathy. While you may start with an active ingredient, in homeopathy you must dilute it over and over again to make it really effective. The really effective dilutions are at levels where it is unlikely a single atom of the original ingredient remains. But under homeopathy that’s what makes it powerful. The other thing about homeopathy is that ‘like treats like’. Which means your base ingredient (the one you dilute away) ought to create the same symptoms – so you’d use something that creates a rash to deal with rashes. It’s utter, utter nonsense. So is acupuncture. Only it’s harder to demonstrate because of the challenge of doing truly double blinded studies.
In that case it must frustrate the medical profession no end that the use of CAM is growing.
Maybe you should look at why a fair proportion of people choose not to take pharmaceutical drugs and to not go under the knife?
And decide to pay out of pocket instead for CAM treatment.
Oh did I mention that a lot of NZ medical doctors use acupuncture, U.O.?
@Red it is not placebo!
! Plus fluoride the neurotoxin! 
You’d think the bleepin councils could do better! 
!
“Consider what chemicals, heavy metals, excess medicines etc etc are in a glass of tap water” – I know!
“If homeopathy did what it actually claims then all we’d need to do is drink a glass of tap water a day (except in Christchurch unless its boiled first) and we’d all be fine” – homeopathy is not tap water! – go and have a look at some of the products in your local pharmacy!
!
Why do you think it’s water?
Beggars belief! 
!
Thanks UO – I already knew that, but consider how some vaccines are giving the body a tiny bit a of bug mmmmm?
Acupuncture looks scary, but I think it works
@Spud,
If it work for you then that do it. I just can’t quiet understand why needle make you feel better. Needles should hurt 
ouch
I was refereeing that Acupuncture has a Placebo effect, well, IMO.
Oh yeah, needles definitely have an element of the placebo effect.
But remember that the placebo effect has *real* effects!
Just like an ibuprofen tablet which comes out of a shiny flash branded neurofen box. It reduces pain more than the same ibuprofen tablet which comes out of a ‘no brand’ plain supermarket box.
That’s the Placebo effect hard at work.
Good guy, that Placebo.
I don’t have acupuncture, it makes me feel squeamish
But I do believe in it. I believe it puts pressure on meridian points in the body. Which makes sense to me as we are all electrical circuits underneath our skin. 
Yeah, but placebo didn’t work in this coffee study I saw on tv. The people who said they felt better, who had no caffeine, tested worse on the reflex and mental tests than the people who had caffeine. And the people with phoney withdraws thinking they had missed out on coffee had no mental decline and the genuine withdrawl people did. See some things override what people think anyway.
And I bet I’m not the only one who took something, at my Ma’s insistence, not expecting it to do anything and then getting a pleasant surprise when it worked!
And how can you put a substance into your body and have it do nothing?
I saw this experiment on TV where the poor saps thought they were drinking alcohol and they acted and felt genuinely drunk. When they were told they didn’t have alcohol they were shocked. But, even with this placebo effect, we still know that if you put alcohol into the body that it does have an effect that is independent of the person’s thinking.
So, even though placebo does do stuff, drugs and homeopathy and acupunture all do work because they do stuff to the body
I had acupuncture on my feet. My series of migraines stopped after that. I don’t care WHY they stopped in scientific/placebo terms, but was just glad they stopped.
It’s not like conventional “science-based” western medicine has been that helpful for my migraines & headaches – just a lifetime swallowing pain-killers & some occasional use of beta-blockers – and the repeated chats from doctors about diet,life-style etc – got it the first time & changed accordingly.
I also wouldn’t have sought out acupuncture, being afraid of the neeedles & pain. But when my London GP offered me a course free on the National Health, I figured it was worth giving it a go. It really wasn’t thaat painful. The needle in the top of one foot was always pretty pain-free. The needle in the top of the other foot often ached a bit.
I was also more willing to give it a go as the needles were in my feet. If it’d been in my head I might have been more reluctant.
Yes, Spud, the GP talked about pressure points a bit while I was having the treatment – showed me some other ones just putting pressure with my hands, that were meant to relieve headaches.
Glad that worked for you Carol. When I was a bit younger acupuncture sorted out a chronic skin condition I had. Had had it for maybe a year or a year and a half. Within three or four weeks of regular treatment – it was almost gone. Happily chucked the G.P.’s tubs of toxic skin thinning corticosteroid cream into the bin.
Cortisone is terrible stuff for the skin, I’m so happy for you Loota
And you Carol 
I heard about an elderly man who had been taking oral cortisone (I think) and it contributed to him turning into a mad man! 
“But I say if you honestly thinks it works for you then go for it.”
All good in theory, until baby Gloria dies of untreated eczema.
Sorry Raymond, but I would hate to see regulation supporting the use of unproven therapies, and I’m already disappointed that taxpayers’ money is used to subsidise people getting degrees in acupuncture.
Acupuncture does work, it’s just that Sham Acupuncture (fake needles or randomly placed needles) works just as well. Where can I get that degree from?
All the effects studies have attributed to acupuncture and homeopathy are consistent with placebo. The painkilling effects reported by acupuncture patients are the same endorphins (natural opioids) that the gym bunnies go on about. Homeopathy, in particular contradicts physics fundamentally, the treatment literally does not exist.
Recommended reading – Trick or Treatment, Simon Singh and Edzard Ernst, (the latter is a professor of complementary medicine by the way) then throw your rescue remedy in the ocean, so no-one ever will be anxious again.
“(fake needles or randomly placed needles) works just as well. Where can I get that degree from?” Sammy’s School of Voodoo
Homeopathy does work and one day science will catch up and explain why
I mean people used to think that the earth was flat 
Spud – yes people did used to think the World was flat and then science led them to realize they were wrong. People used to believe that pure water could heal because it had a memory of substance long since diluted out of it. But science has demonstrated that thinking to be nonsense. I don’t think you quite understand, but in this situation you’re the flat earther arguing against evidence and, well, common-sense. Homeopathy has no demonstrable mechanism or logic that suggests how it might work. And every properly conducted study of it has concluded it doesn’t work. What more do you need? It can’t work – and it doesn’t work.
Meh, Singh and Ernst just have their own barrow to push. The billion dollar pharma industry is its own marketing juggernaut in this arena.
Fact of the matter is, ‘proven’ conventional medical therapies frequently cause injuries.
They don’t work for the majority of peeps (ever see an RCT where more than 50% of people were cured by a drug? The very rare one).
So given all the treatment failures or the people who do not wish to take drugs or go under the knife, I thought you would welcome additional treatment options.
Science if for opening minds not closing them.
Science is not supposed to be some kind of new dogmatic orthodoxy.
And lets not forget – scientific medicine is not scientific at all – it is an applied technology.
Well, plenty of people thinks that it works for them and their kids while conventional medicine causes them injury,
So what are you going to say to these people?
Sorry its in your imagination, my studies prove you are wrong?
Neither did magnetic compasses in the 13th century.
Matty Smith said:
Did you just make this up? Cause its pretty daft.
Conventional medical care has its place, and in a crisis where the body is seriously injured or breaking down it often comes in very handy.
Loota and Spud. The primary problem you have here is that a lot of research *has* been conducted into acupuncture, and whatever effect it has is extremely small, accounted for primarily in placebo. Sham acupuncture is conducted as a control and compared against “real” acupuncture. What we know from well conducted studies using good controls is that (a) acupuncture has an effect no better than a ritualised placebo (b) it doesn’t matter where you stick the needles so it has nothing to do with Qi or meridians (c) it doesn’t matter if you stick the needles in at all or not just so long as people think you have. Treating with placebos is unethical for a number of reasons – firstly the practitioner has to lie to their patient to get the strongest possible effect, secondly they are not doing anything except treating the symptoms very temporarily, thirdly placebos are cheap and financial pressures on medical institutions could see them over-prescribed versus effective treatments.
Three of many problems with placebo medicine.
Your ideologically-driven opposition to science-based medicine is based on severely and deliberately misunderstanding modern medical practice, the massively larger number of seriously ill patients that go through the medical system compared with the fake (”alternative”) medical community, the chronic lack of funding to the medical system, and the fact that there are still no particularly effective treatments at all for some conditions (like some kinds of back pain). I imagine you also believe that the medical community is in big pharma’s pocket, and there’s a kernel of truth there, but we must also remember that it’s the medical research community pulling pharma up when it does wrong – as with Vioxx – and not the alternative health movement which is, in the majority, grossly ignorant of human physiology.
Spud: People used to think the earth was flat. People used to think “like cures like”. In both cases, they were fundamentally wrong.
Loota: No, I assure you, I made nothing up
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/baby-gloria-thomass-parents-thomas-and-manju-sam-jailed-for-not-getting-proper-medical-help/story-e6freuy9-1225780501717
I should also say that while the vast majority of alternative medicines are demonstrably snake oils, there are some diamonds in the rough. Homeopathy and acupuncture are not those diamonds.
You’re also deliberately pretending (or goodness forbid you believe) that modern medicine is confined to pushing pills and surgery. Which is a shocking lie. Half an MDs job is dealing with patients who have illnesses that will go away happily on their own most of the time (like colds) and giving advice about lifestyle changes that might be required: “You need to seriously consider quitting those cigarettes.”
Medicine is about what works when it is tested carefully to avoid being fooled by our own presumptions. What *works*, not what seems to work because of the placebo effect but doesn’t actually address the problem at all if there is one.
Physics will prove me right in time
Goodnight! 
Night Loota 
I’m not arguing about this at this hour, I have a long tedious day tomorrow and want to snuggle down into the earth and get some sleep
Carol, Red, Chris, Raymond
Be back to this thread tomorrow
Spud, physics has relatively little to do with it compared with other sciences, and chemistry and biology have quite some time ago proven you wrong. Goodnight all the same. It is late. Take care.
And the billion dollar snakeoil called vioxx?
And the billion dollar snakeoil called avandia?
You labelled one case of death through medical neglect.
Those drugs killed tens of thousands and made billions of dollars.
Physician heal thy self.
I’m not apologising nor defending those products. I criticise them just the same as I criticise any profit-driven affront to humanity.
Their wrongness does not make fake medicine right.
C u tomorrow
Pushing pills is where the money is in medicine.
And by the way, how do you like the fact that a doctor saying to someone “You need to seriously consider quitting those cigarettes” has next to no effect?
Do you really need to spend $400K and take ten years to train someone to say that?
Doesn’t that seem like waste to you?
Well that definitely sounds like a waste to me.
Oh, but their wrongness costs billions, was covered by shoddy science and bad journal publications, yet you target the small fry of CAM.
interesting.
So? Pushing needles is where the money is in acupuncture. At least the damned MDs tell people with colds that they’ll get better with time, rest, and water, instead of plying them with ineffective substances for money.
A doctor can tell you precisely, in anatomical terms, what those cigarettes are doing to you (it could be any of many things) and what they will do if you continue. They can explain, if necessary, the respiratory system in considerable detail. And, if the patient follows the advice to stop smoking on their MD’s advice, there is plentiful effect. Their risk of throat, lung, and head cancers won’t continue to climb like crazy; their respiratory system will – eventually – not be so taxed; their circulation can improve; their teeth will not necessarily be quite so bad; the list goes on and on.
That is not next to no effect, and it’s total strawman to pretend that the ability to give such detailed and accurate information is the ONLY thing that years of training and $400K provides.
“Half an MDs job is dealing with patients who have illnesses that will go away happily on their own most of the time (like colds)”
Sorry, that was both meant to read GP, and it was deliberate hyperbole.
“Oh, but their wrongness costs billions, was covered by shoddy science and bad journal publications, yet you target the small fry of CAM.”
CAM isn’t a “small fry” it’s a multi-billion dollar industry that preys upon the vulnerable and springboards off the terribly piss-poor level of investment in NZ’s scientific education.
Moreover, how precisely am I ‘targeting’ CAM *over* medical fraud? CAM for the most part IS medical fraud. Moreover, this is a discussion of a CAM therapy that does not work. The target of this particular discussion is not Vioxx, not Avandia, it is acupuncture. You’re only dragging up these cases of medical fraud to deviate the discussion away from the actual topic at hand.
Yes. Vioxx is a documented case of massive, profit-driven, inhumane conduct by a pharmaceutical company. What does have to do with the fact that acupuncture doesn’t work? Nothing. It has nothing to do with the topic at hand, as important an issue as it is.