Anti-science left wing culture...
... from hippies to Whole Foods shoppers, is enamored of health-care pseudoscience -- despite an overwhelming lack of scientific evidence for its effectiveness. Given that "with acupuncture the outcome does not depend on needle location or even needle insertion," wrote David Colquhoun and Steven Novella in 2013 in Anesthesia and Analgesia, the journal of the International Anesthesia Research Society, "the only sensible conclusion is that acupuncture does not work." They note that by 1822 Chinese emperor Dao Guang had forbidden the practice from the Imperial Medical Academy; it was revived under Mao Zedong in the 1960s to promote Chinese nationalism, and to compensate for the scarcity of trained doctors in the country -- hardly evidence for its healing properties. But a practitioner is available on nearly every Bay Area block.
It's not entirely their fault.
These freakin back to nature freaks their brains are walnut size and their nuttier then a room full of fruitecakes
You can always tell a healthy leftist.
They are the pale, gaunt, peasant looking people in the crowd with unwashed hair.
Years ago I was sitting in a patient room waiting for a physiotherapist, when I noticed a box of acupuncture needles on the shelf. My trust evaporated.
Too many witch doctors in this world.
When you try to explain that the "science" behind accupuncture is laughable, believers give me the glazed-eye look of the type who don't want to hear.
Whether it's "woo-woo" alternative medicine or global warming,these people are desperate to believe, and no argument based on facts will dissuade them.
A question for our Western media: when you're cold, broke, sick, and scared, will you still be writing bullshit?
The placebo effect is one of the most powerful medical phenomenon known.
Patients may respond very well to acupuncture only because of the games the mind can play on the body and the way we can manipulate the mind to give us this favourable response.
So lets not get too carried away with labeling any one "medical" treatment as quackery or "left wing" as there may indeed be very valid scientific reasons to explore these phenomenon further.
I would like to read Loki's response to this rather than you buncha knee jerk idiots that dismiss stuff for political rather than scientific reasons.
There are practitioners that quite consciously use the placebo effect and the white-coat effect to manage pain and discomfort. And that's great. There's also a load of chiropractors, naturopaths, and reiki therapists that are at best taking gullible people's money, and at worst doing measurable harm through neglect or injury.
There's a saying in the skeptic community: "there is no such thing as 'conventional medicine' and 'alternative medicine'. There's merely 'medicine that works' and 'medicine that doesn't'." We have the tools to determine which is which. What we don't have is unlimited money. Investigating whether waving your hands in the air over a patient or jabbing them randomly with needles Really Does Something isn't a productive use of limited resources.
Gullibility starts with believing that some guy posting anonymously on a blog is really the expert he claims to be.
Get in line and bend over, Iola.
Early man perfected acupuncture around the same time he was able to walk completely upright. Does anyone else see the connection here?
Power of suggestion is powerful.....it sells used cars....eases pain....elects tyrants....
""Power of suggestion is powerful.....it sells used cars....eases pain....elects tyrants....""
AND
fills churches!!
and their incumbent collection plates
HOOOOOOOONK.
Wrong once again Kate. The anti-vaccine movement is in fact populated mostly by those on the Right.
http://mikethemadbiologist.com/2013/08/15/anti-vaccination-has-a-slight-rightwing-bias-and-the-whole-foods-liberal/
Source here:
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2011/PPP_Release_National_ConspiracyTheories_040213.pdf
But as Mike the mad biologist says... don't worry, there is enough stupid to go around for everyone.
I did not believe in acupuncture, but was sent to one who treated my elbow, after 2 treatments the problem went away. I should also say that Chinese traditional medicine along with a full public and private healthcare system co-exists in Malaysia.