'Skeptics' take on Accupuncture

'Skeptics' take on Accupuncture (read here)

Ok just had to butcher my own article :p

I opened with a statement that "The Chinese do freaking open heart surgery with accupuncture anaesthetic while the patient is conscious with its chest open, the BBC has shown it in a documentary even."
Edit: Holy crap, someone posted a comment with a link that the entire segment in the docu was fake, thanks to the poster, but real gratitude goes out to the BBC! :p

For example, the scene showing a patient punctured with needles and undergoing heart surgery left viewers with the strong impression that acupuncture was providing immense pain relief. In fact, in addition to acupuncture, the patient had a combination of three very powerful sedatives (midazolam, droperidol, fentanyl) and large volumes of local anaesthetic injected into the chest.

With such a cocktail of chemicals, the needles were merely cosmetic. In short, this memorable bit of television was emotionally powerful, but scientifically meaningless in building a case for acupuncture. I have spoken to several experts who say that the procedure was neither shocking nor impressive, but it was unconventional because the Chinese surgeons seemed to have used a higher level of local anaesthetic to compensate for the lack of general anaesthetic.

When I put this to Professor Sykes, she replied: "The suggestion that the operation could have taken place without the acupuncture and it would have been fine is an interesting idea and might possibly be the case."

Well you don't have to be a scientist to know that do ya Sykes? Fuck :p

My main point though was this:
What the thinker thinks, the prover proves. That goes for scientists (even methodologists! :p) too. You have to look first, make up your mind later. And belief or openness to the treatment is an actual necessary factor as it relies on the neurosomatic mind body connection... So I think it's kinda logical you have to be awake in a MIND-BODY Healing modality.

"but alternative medicine only seems to work when you are awake. You have to know (or think) you’re being treated."

This was my biggest issue with the article. It's the whole point of mind-body medicine. If they can't grasp that how can they investigate the modality well? Obviously mind-body healing can't be measured with old paradigm objective science - because it's subjective. I remain unconvinced by this research. Awareness cannot be measured (yet) either, is anyone silly enough to claim it doesn't exist?

Conclusion: Another lesson in BS (thanks again anonymous poster). I haven't tried accupuncture and don't like needles period. Though work with Chi energy and Meridians has proven very useful to me and I found this investigation unconvincing due to their basic assumptions about it.