Pseudoscientific acupuncture？

Introduction 

It is said that acupuncture was invented by Fuxi, with a history of more than 4000 years. As one of the important treatment methods of traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture has been accepted and recognized by many people at home and abroad.

However, there are also some discordant voices. These people denounce acupuncture as a pseudoscience. This article refutes this prejudice in a fair and calm position.

Serious challenges 

If you are overseas and search what acupuncture is, you will get the answer: acupuncture is a pseudoscience.

This seemed to have become a consensus. The Wikipedia website clearly stated that acupuncture was a pseudoscience. The article pointed out that "the theory and practice of Chinese medicine are not based on scientific knowledge, while acupuncture and moxibustion are pseudoscience". You know this is not a simple mistake.

This statement made the Chinese medicine community extremely angry. More than 2,500 TCM practitioners signed their names on the petition page to protest and request Wikipedia to correct this. The signers were not just Chinese, but doctors from different ethnic groups around the world and people who cured diseases through acupuncture.

They once protested to Jimmy Wells, the founder of Wikipedia, in 2014, but the other side insisted that Wikipedia had a correct position and believed that no scientific paper could prove that acupuncture was "scientific". However, in fact, relevant testimonial articles from Cochrane, Harvard University, and neuroscience journals on the wiki introduction page had been deleted. The editing function of relevant columns was also disabled.

Mel Copman was an acupuncturist who ran a clinic in Leicester, England. She once told reporters of French Evening News that Wikipedia could allow volunteers to use recognized sources to support their claims, while editors with scientific and medical backgrounds wanted to make explanations more balanced, but they were censored and banned by anti acupuncture skeptics.

"This is all anti acupuncture propaganda, and Wikipedia does not show evidence." She told the reporter, "Some research results suggest that acupuncture can relieve pain, although most studies suggest that the effect of acupuncture is mainly due to placebo. However, Wikipedia references only a single evaluation from an anti acupuncture skeptic in 2006."

Kopman said that the page on acupuncture was controlled by the editors of Wikipedia, who did not allow any articles that could prove the scientific nature of acupuncture. Copman described her experience to a reporter. She said that she was only involved in it and only provided some evidence from mainstream traditional medical institutions to prove that acupuncture was a medical recommended treatment, which was "prohibited" by Wikipedia for nearly a week. Before her, many editors who tried to make the same argument were also "banned".

Tom Davies from the UK left a message saying that he also tried to make minor changes to the page, but it was almost immediately deleted. He thought this page was artificially controlled. Kopman said that it may be difficult for Wikipedia to make changes from the previous statements of the other side, but he hoped to arouse people's attention to the name rectification of acupuncture through the petition.

They seemed to be determined to label acupuncture as a pseudoscience.This kind of behavior was to hit oneself in the face.

Development History of Acupuncture Abroad

When acupuncture was first introduced into the West, it was once regarded as a myth.

The cover of American Newsweek, published in August 1972, was a girl with silver needles all over her face. The inside text was a group of articles on acupuncture.

In July 1971, New York Times columnist James Reston suffered from acute appendicitis during his visit to China. The next day after the operation, his abdomen was distended and painful. The Chinese doctor gave him acupuncture treatment, and the effect was remarkable. Later, Reston published an article on the front page of the New York Times about his own experience of acupuncture, which became a historical symbol of the introduction of acupuncture into the United States.

In 1972, President Nixon of the United States visited China, and his entourage and delegation doctors observed acupuncture anesthesia surgery in the Third Affiliated Hospital of Beijing Medical University, setting off the first international acupuncture craze.

In 1972, the first acupuncture center in the United States was established in New York, receiving more than 8,000 patients within two weeks.

Data shows that there were 45,000 acupuncturists in the United States in 2009 (only a few thousand Chinese), and 20 million people in the United States now experience acupuncture treatment every year.

According to the official data of the Canadian Embassy in China, millions of Canadians experience acupuncture every year, which is about 1/10 of the national population.

According to the statistics of the Ministry of Health and Welfare of Japan, as early as 2004, there were 14,993 registered acupuncture institutions and 75,100 acupuncturists.

South Korea has a population of more than 50 million, and about 14,000-2,000 people are Chinese doctors. Every year, 10,000 Korean students come to China to study Chinese medicine.

On November 16, 2010, "acupuncture and moxibustion of traditional Chinese medicine" was included in the "Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity".

Abandon the prejudice against acupuncture

If acupuncture and moxibustion are pseudoscience, how to explain these data and facts?

Admittedly, the principle of acupuncture cannot be explained in a completely scientific way. But it has proved to us with countless examples that acupuncture is effective.

But can we say that acupuncture is a pseudoscience, just because its principle cannot be proved by science? Such a statement is undoubtedly groundless and biased. It can be said that all these can be attributed to the prejudice at the ideological level. Among those who resist acupuncture, some people fail to see one achievement after another brought about by acupuncture, and these people are in the minority. Most of the remaining people have seen or heard of the magic of acupuncture more or less, but they resist this oriental medicine. Once they catch the weakness of acupuncture, they will fully resist acupuncture.

The fact is that acupuncture has a growing influence. According to incomplete statistics, traditional Chinese medicine has spread to 183 countries and regions. Some countries also include acupuncture and moxibustion in medical insurance. A large number of foreigners who come to China every year to study natural science come to learn acupuncture and moxibustion.

You see, not everyone holds this prejudice. I believe that if those who hold the pseudo scientific acupuncture theory further understand and experience acupuncture, and maintain an objective and calm attitude, they will have a completely different evaluation of acupuncture.

End