Acupuncture: therapy or placebo?

First the disclaimers: I’m a PhD scientist with a well-trained crap detector. And I was a medical school (allopathic medicine) professor for 37 years. While I’ve never practiced medicine, I have a pretty deep understanding of evidence-based medicine.

“At a time when people are increasingly concerned about drug side effects, some consider acupuncture an attractive non-medication option. Unfortunately, many studies show that the potential benefits of acupuncture are short-lived. In my experience, I put acupuncture, massage, and chiropractic interventions in the same bucket. You may feel better for a day or two, but there is limited lasting improvement.”

It’s not like acupuncture hadn’t been examined by the same rigorous scientific studies that drug and vaccines are subject to.

“In one study, 249 people with migraines occurring two to eight times per month received either acupuncture, sham (fake/placebo) acupuncture, or were put on an acupuncture waiting list. The two treatment groups received treatment five days per week for four weeks. Twelve weeks after treatment, the acupuncture group had on average 3.2 fewer attacks per month, the sham acupuncture group had 2.1 fewer attacks per month, and the wait-list group had 1.4 fewer attacks per month. These results are modest at best, and carry an approximate treatment cost of $2,000 per month (estimating $100/session x 20 sessions). This figure does not include lost income from time away from work to attend appointments, travel costs, pain from the procedure, and recovery time.

“In general, the effectiveness of standard treatment (medication and injectable therapies) is supported by much stronger scientific evidence than acupuncture, including large clinical trials with thousands of subjects.”

On the one hand, placebos don’t have side effects, other than diverting patients from real therapy. Of course, when it comes to diseases like fake cancer therapy (Laetrile) or fake anti-virals (ivermectin), the placebos on offer can lead to harm or death. At the very least, they’re flushing lots of money down the toilet.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/acupuncture-a-point-in-the-right-direction-or-a-stab-in-the-dark-2017050311672 

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