Tag Archives: Alternatives to Medicine

Isaac’s Golden Moment

Posted in Alternative "medicine" scams, Big Placebo, Chiropractic, Health, Immunisation, Legal, Scam, Science, Skeptic by

Three weeks ago I attended a public lecture entitled Medicine and Homeopathy.

The latest from Melbourne University Health Initiative, the lineup included homeopath Isaac Golden and chiropractor Simon Floreani to present the argument for homeopathy. Public health physician and medical activist Dr. Ken Harvey and GP Dr. Stephen Basser, one of Australia’s most accomplished critics and analysts of alternatives to medicine, held the fort for medicine.

All but Stephen Basser feature in this video examining claims made by Isaac Golden about homeoprophylaxis. I was confident Golden would pull off a pleasant well meaning presence and equally confident Floreani would flounder and fall. As it turned out he never arrived, leaving Golden to retrace the tired old footsteps he’s been doing for years all by himself.

There’s a few things that I found novel. Golden was quick to label the Cuban homeopathic immunisation study (see video above) as “an intervention”, not a trial. This in one swipe silenced many a prepared question including my own over how the “immunised” demographic returned to levels of Leptospirosis infection similar to those found elsewhere in Cuba (non “immunised”). The “intervention”, which is quoted by homeopaths as hard evidence of efficacy is often criticised for poor methodology, lacking a control group and inexplicably failing to randomise subjects.

So by renaming it an “intervention” Golden could proclaim to have “evidence” and dismiss questions raised about its veracity being flawed due to poor trial practice. Throughout the “intervention” paper the rest of Cuba (RC) is presented where and how a control would normally be presented in a trial. Defenders of the caper point to RC as a quasi-control when it suits the need to convey comparative difference. Thus, Isaac has invented a nifty escape clause from defending poor methodology.

Another point (in fact an inexcusable failing) was Golden’s inability to address what is at once one of the least complex problems, but perhaps the most important. The entire Cuban scam is not Hahnemannian homeopathy. By no means am I the first to note this. It’s more of what I call Supercalifragilistichomeoprophylaxis.

During the evening Isaac Golden made much of remaining true to Samuel Hahnemann’s Law of Similars and Law of Infinitesimals. The Law of Similars is sometimes known as “like cures like” and states that a mother tincture should be made from a substance which produces symptoms similar to that produced by the disease.

Yet in the Cuban study they used four dead – completely inactive – strains of Leptospira bacteria to make the mother tincture. The paper refers to “highly-diluted strains of inactivated leptospiras”. However the paper title is, Large-scale application of highly-diluted bacteria for Leptospirosis epidemic control. Plainly that is misleading in itself.

So I pointed out to Isaac that in view of his insistence upon the law of similars, and noting that the Cuban mother tincture didn’t contain a substance that could produce any symptom like those experienced with leptospirosis (the bacteria were always dead), he had a problem. Confident, he responded that no, it’s not like a traditional vaccine.

Another audience member ran it by him again. Isaac was confused. Ken Harvey explained the problem also. Then I spelled out the obvious. Without the Law of Similars, there’s no Law of Infinitesimals. But he didn’t hear. Clearly stumped, his mind was cranking over. Eventually he produced the claim that the dead bacteria still had the “energy shape” or “energy signature” and were thus still viable. Quickly he turned and selected another questioner.

I was delighted. Isaac Golden had just told me an “energy shape” could produce similar symptoms to live bacteria. But even better, he’d made it up on the spot. After earlier signing his name to the Law of Similars, he then denied its necessity. I still wanted to press the point as this excuse couldn’t explain the “blood, puss, discharge, urine, flesh, causal organisms…”, and other organic goo used in highly dilute nosodes.

No Law of Infinitesimals either with no Similars. We never really made it to discuss that point. But I already had my answer in that he had no answer. For the record, the beaker for the most dilute agent was washed out 9,999 times. On the 10,000th refill it was called a homeopathic immunising agent. That’s not highly diluted – that’s washed away. The less potent (less dilute) was washed out 199 times.

It was Supercalifragilistichomeoprophylaxis if ever I’d seen it. Remember dear reader a nosode is a homeopathic dose. Golden had earlier used the term. Its definition – in this case – demands “causal organisms”. Energy shape just didn’t make it. The audience member who helped Isaac understand wrote, “Get out of jail free” on his notepad and slid it my way. I had to agree. We know homeopaths make it up as they go along, but it was really nice to be there to see that actually happen.

It was truly a Golden moment.

Other points deserve a mention. Already referring patients to conventional doctors, Isaac came across as keen to extend conventional connections and is striving to make something of a research base. He does not entertain the “us and them” combative mindset of the Monika Milka’s and anti-vaxxer types we know and love, and appeared genuinely keen to reciprocate with bilateral trials. One concern was his allusion to conspiracies, when it was pointed out that if efficacy was truly and constantly demonstrable that widespread use and marketing would already be apparent.

One couldn’t miss however that the totality of discourse and questioning was biased toward examining the claims made by Isaac. He did after all kick off by stressing he heals the “entire person”. This means mental, physical, personal, spiritual and probably “quantumal” for all I know. This was “natural medicine” to Isaac. Getting the human healing abilities to function on these levels.

We were promised lots of evidence but regrettably a few excuses related to third parties were raised. Aside from the Cuban standard, Isaac brought in the Swiss “study”. Written by pro-complementary medicine interests for governmental review and favouring popular demand it was a poor choice as the material is known to be highly selective in favour of homeopathy. Isaac appealed to popularity and use as equating to efficacy a number of times.

Dr. Stephen Basser’s deconstruction of why homeopathy is so widely used, sought after and applied by medical professionals was excellent. It highlighted the factors outside of efficacy that drive uptake and continued use of demonstrably non efficacious options. Patient request or demand, choice of placebo, doctors’ role in monitoring complex patients, marketing, what it’s actually used for and the context of these figures.

I’ve noted here before how chiropractors boast how many Aussies per day use chiropractic – after signing them into treatment contracts. Purchasing 100 doses of a homeopathic preparation doesn’t support it being entirely used. Nor do uptake figures represent clearly articulated failures – and dissatisfaction. What is regular? What is novel or first time? And so on. In short there is no association between popularity and efficacy. Or between demand and documented efficacy.

Ken harvey brought up the point I’d have guessed most would have asked at question time. Golden claims to have completed his PhD successfully in homeopathic immunisation. In Golden’s abstract we read:

The effectiveness of the program could not be established with statistical certainty given the limited sample size and the low probability of acquiring an infectious disease.

This didn’t stop Golden from then claiming:

However, a possible level of effectiveness of 90.3% was identified subject to specified limitations. Further research to confirm the effectiveness of the program is justified.

Despite defending the semantics on the night, it’s clear this air guitar of a PhD has only mused over a possibility.

One thing agreed on at the beginning was to not discuss the mechanisms of homeopathy. In other words, to avoid raising the fact it is physically impossible. This did allow the discussion to move forward. In essence, Golden was awarded a huge concession with respect to reality. Something of a microcosm of the larger homeopathic industry perhaps.

All up it was an interesting night given that no new evidence popped up to support homeopathy. Like many homeopaths Isaac really believes in it.

He just needs to conclude that ones belief is not truth.

Blind chiropractor who fiddled whilst patient lay dying suspended for 12 months

Posted in Chiropractic, Scam by

Dr Forte’s title of Doctor does not imply that he has any academic medical qualification. He does not. It is a courtesy title only and, ethically, is only utilised in the context of his chiropractic practice.

From Inquest finding into death of James Halloran, S.A. April 1st 2010

Mario Forte progressively lost his sight over many years.

Although holding a diploma in sports massage and working part time for himself, his loss of vision demanded a professional downgrade. By the mid 1980’s he would see only shades of light and dark. By the late 1990’s he would be totally blind. As a masseuse he would be subject to reviews, retraining, infrequent accreditation and occasional inspection. There would be… standards. Problems were foreseen (no pun intended).

Could there possibly be a related discipline that allowed contact with patients whilst you pretend to be doing something but actually do nothing? Where you just make stuff up and claim it is of the highest standard? Of course – Chiropractic! In 1978 he began training with a qualified chiropractor for a period of three years.

In the same year he began his own practice at home, whilst still working part time with his trainer. In 1979 he was accepted as a member of the United Chiropractors’ Association of Australasia Limited. When the Chiropractors Act 1981 popped up he became registered under it and has remained so ever since.

In December 2006 Mr. James Halloran visited Forte at his practice at the rear of Forte’s elderly father’s address. At some point Mr. Halloran collapsed and became “convulsive, unconscious [and] unresponsive” on the floor. Australian Doctor report that Forte rang a colleague (4 minutes) discussing options. He then rang a local doctor’s practice, whereupon he was advised to call 000. He ignored this advice.

Three minutes later he tried to call another general practice without success. Then he called 000. Time wasted: 9 Minutes. He fetched his elderly father and Forte claims they did their best to administer “late and inadequately executed” CPR.

Forte had guessed Mr. Halloran was suffering an epileptic fit. As he is totally blind and chose to work alone, a couple of problems with this spring to mind. Although he had no idea of Mr. Halloran’s medical history, for my money, if you’ve got to pick something along the spectrum from “practical joke” to “massive stroke or other cardiovascular event”, then epileptic fit is as good as any.

However, the S.A. Health Practitioners Tribunal, past whom no detail no matter how small shall pass without scrutiny noted that Forte was:

… effectively unable to monitor the patient’s vital signs because he was blind

Yay verily. They continue their astonishing insight:

In other words he did nothing effective towards assisting his patient during this time… He could not check pupil dilation and the other things that would depend upon vision, such as skin pallor or foaming at the mouth. The fact that he could not do so and had that limitation should have occurred to him.

Combining up to the minute health practice knowledge and 2 years hindsight of a 37 page Coronial Inquest Report they offer with blistering understatement:

[Even] if Mr Halloran was to die, Dr Forte’s negligence and incompetence remains just as grave, not in respect of the outcome but in respect of the fact that he did nothing.

This last statement is made due to the fact that Forte was cleared of contributing to Mr. Halloran’s death despite the Deputy State Coroner noting:

Dr Forte at times in his evidence had a reluctance to give a responsive answer to the question asked of him and was unduly intractable and argumentative. […]

In the event, I have not needed to resort to the evidence of the admission to make any finding about whether Dr Forte applied force to the cervical spine, but I do say that [“an impressive professional individual and indeed an impressive witness” – an attending paramedic’s] evidence raises a nagging doubt in my mind as to whether Dr Forte was being completely frank with the Court.

In short Forte had admitted manipulating the spine to paramedics yet testified that no such conversation took place and denied manipulation. As it eventuated the cause of death could not be isolated to having originated from his manipulation. There was pathology evidence pointing to a vertebral artery embolus that had originated elsewhere. This could have caused a respiratory arrest followed by a cardiac arrest. But this cannot be determined. The rare event of vagal inhibition leading to cardiac arrest was raised and dismissed.

In any event death resulted from lack of oxygen to the brain as a probable and direct consequence of Forte’s apathy. From the Inquest finding:

One thing that Dr Gilbert was certain about was that the global brain injury suffered by Mr Halloran was entirely consistent with his cardiac arrest and the consequent lack of oxygen delivery to the brain during that hypoxic period. Dr Gilbert suggested that a brain could survive without oxygen and not be damaged for a period of the order of 2 to 3 minutes. […]

If he was obtaining effective CPR, the 9 minutes that had been suggested might not be regarded as a full 9 minutes of hypoxia. The damage to the brain might not be as extensive as it would be if there had been a period of 9 minutes without CPR. Nine minutes of deprivation of oxygen would, however, involve a lethal insult to the brain and would cause a global severe anoxic injury incompatible with life. […]

All that said, it will be remembered that whatever the position was, Mr Halloran did suffer a severe global anoxic brain injury which signifies very strongly that there was a significant period of time following his cardiac arrest during which he was receiving no oxygen regardless of the competence of any CPR.

It must be noted that the emergency dispatch operator had offered to give CPR instructions to Forte’s parents who were present. Forte agrees with this. CPR was not commenced until 19 minutes after Forte called the other chiropractor to discuss options. At a minimum Forte spent 13 minutes alone with the deceased before physically going to fetch his parents.

However long beforehand Forte had taken guessing an epileptic fit is simply not known. His information is, for whatever reason, flawed. There were two emergency calls, the second including the offer of CPR instructions, yet he at first insisted there had been only one. The paramendic observed “very, very blue” extremities suggesting no effective CPR had taken place. Forte holds a lapsed St. John’s First Aid certificate.

This tragic event highlights much of what is wrong with the pseudoscience of chiropractic masquerading as a health provision service. There is no question of Forte’s ability to manage and triumph over his blindness. Yet one must seriously query exactly what support or interventions were instigated on behalf of the Chiropractic Association and the more responsible Chiropractic Board of Australia to address Mario Forte’s obvious needs and the consequential risk to each and every of his patients. This in turn raises serious questions about accreditation and basic standards.

Let me spell it out. How the hell can a practising chiropractor not hold a current First Aid certificate? There is simply no excuse.

Ill people are fooled by the abuse of the title “Dr.” and the absurdly ambitious claims made by this careless, arrogant and woefully trained sham discipline. Had proper CPR been administered and anoxic brain injury averted Mr. Halloran may likely be alive today. A method for coping adequately with such events should have been available and well drilled. Despite Forte’s shortfalls as an honest witness he has certainly been failed by his profession.

As for the cause of Mr. Halloran’s cardiac arrest we can only glean a possible hint from 3.6 of the Inquest report:

Mr Halloran had not consulted Dr Forte prior to the occasion in question. It is not known whether, at any time prior to Mr Halloran’s arrival at Dr Forte’s clinic, Mr Halloran had any appreciation of the fact that Dr Forte was blind, but it would have been obvious once he arrived.

Obvious indeed.

 

Some AVN Stupid burns so much it REALLY burns

Posted in Big Placebo, Health, Legal, Scam, Science by

50% of us will face cancer in our own lives at one time or another… we will have to face the choice of how to treat our illness – using toxic drugs or safe, effective, time-tested natural remedies… If you or someone you know is facing this issue or if you just want to be prepared for any future cancer diagnoses, this will be the best $25 you have ever spent!

Meryl Dorey – farmer’s wife

If you happen to pass by the AVN Shop with a spare red back you could apparently spend it on an amazing secret.

So incredible that Big Pharma, Big Government and Big Medicine don’t want you to know about it. What is it that “they” don’t want you to know about? One answer to cancer. That “one answer” is based on testimonials about black salve combined with ridiculous claims about Aldara (Imiquimod). Imiquimod is accused of causing “systemic and fatal reactions” and actually causing cancer.

In fact imiquimod is successful in treating basal and squamous cell carcinomas, malignant melanomas, actinic keratosis and genital warts to name some conditions. The business about it causing cancer may well have it’s genesis in the fact imiquimod is used on subclinical lesions to promote visibility. It’s a painful approach but ensures all lesions can be successfully treated.

“They” don’t want you to know

Black salve is a type of corrosive salve known as an escharotic. If you’d like to see and read up on the sort of damage corrosive salves can do, check out Quackwatch‘s article aptly headed, Don’t Use Corrosive Cancer Salves (Escharotics). A discussion on the natural logic for their use can be found, I believe, in close proximity to the word “preposterous”.

Dorey’s copy/paste blurb includes the usual silliness about “nature’s scalpel” having been used for over 2,000 years “to treat skin cancers and other cancerous conditions, leading to a total remission of the disease.” Total remission! Wow. Of course putting profits “ahead of morality or their duty of care”, doctors and therapeutic watchdogs have ruined lives with proven Aldara all over the world, rather than promote Black Salve. Strange, because in their overview of Cancer Salves the American Cancer Society note in that killjoy Big Medicine fashion:

Available scientific evidence does not support claims that salves are effective in treating cancer or tumors. In fact, some ingredients may cause great harm. There have been numerous reports of severe burns, disfigurement, and permanent scarring from some of these salves.

That’s awfully negative and a little alarming. In Australia the TGA did publish a warning on it’s website on February 3rd. No doubt just showing off because they can bridge the gap between Big Pharma and Big Government whilst pretending to regulate Big Medicine, the immoral profiteers abandon duty of care to warn Patients and Consumers:

The TGA strongly advises consumers and patients against purchasing or using Black Salve.

Black Salve is corrosive and essentially burns off layers of the skin and surrounding normal tissue. It can destroy large parts of the skin and underlying tissue, and leave significant scarring.

In addition to the TGA warning about the purchase and use of Black Salve, the TGA is also investigating the supply of the product in Australia.

Further, a complaint about the advertising of Black Salve on certain Australian Internet sites is currently under consideration by the Complaints Resolution Panel.

Not long ago Janelle Miles of The Courier Mail reported on this ongoing global plot to ruin lives with toxic drugs and hide, “this safe, effective, time tested natural remedy”, as Meryl called it. Interviewing Cosmetic Physicians Society of Australasia president Gabrielle Caswell, they managed to catch her out saying it was “pretty horrific stuff”, capable of causing “gross scarring”. “It’s disturbing that this product is so widely available,’‘, she added.

Later, probably trying to drive suspicion away from Big Cosmo, Caswell added:

“I wouldn’t want it on my body. I wouldn’t put it on a dog if I had a dog because I think if you have a pet, you look after them.”

Which is rather telling because apparently it is being sold for animal use. Illegally. The Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority are presently investigating five websites for peddling porkies to pooch. Many sites are quite happy to tell you the TGA advises against use for humans. But when you know “they” don’t want you to know, the sites may assume you know of another meaning entirely. You know?

The World Today ran a report earlier today on this issue [Audio MP3 here]. It’s clear there are appalling corrosive side effects that can ensue from using Black Salve. Yet the sheer predatory nature of those who contend that a localised agent could have any effect on a deeply invasive cancerous growth that also metastasises, (like melanoma), is appalling.

So is the claim that blood roots, zinc chloride and zinc oxide is a “safe, effective, natural” alternative being hushed up by organised conspiracy. The ABC confirm that many websites claim “that the medical establishment rejects alternative cancer therapies such as Black Salve because it’s too difficult to make money from them.”

TGA issues warning on skin cancer remedy © ABC The World Today

Despite promotion of anecdotal claims and testimonials, as Ian Olver from the Cancer Council said:

If you just have testimonials, you really don’t know whether, even if it said to work whether that is one in two, one in 20 or one in 200 and that makes a big difference to whether you suggest it to anyone else.

The best twenty odd bucks you’ll ever spend? This burning stupid really burns.

Victorian skeptic & school teacher Adam Vanlangenberg discusses his lunchtime class

Posted in Big Placebo, Denialism, Health, Scam, Science by

The rise of pseudoscience has been significant since cheap, rapid access to information has been the norm.

Regrettably the extreme beliefs held by many have been massaged by those who benefit such that Choice and Point of view (no matter how wrong) is taking the place of Evidence and Peer review. The trendy phrase that bothers me most is “health freedom”.

It’s one thing for hanky panky nonsense to make promises from shop windows and festivals. Yet quite another when it begins to shape the quality of science education on offer in Australian Universities. This rise in what I consider outright scams driven by those who are motivated by ego, self serving ideals and profit has a long history. I accept that many have genuine beliefs in the “wellness” industry. But I am yet to be availed of any evidence that consumer service and health is taking precedence over a vindictive confrontational trend by the many Enemies of Reason.

Recently the group Friends of Science in Medicine formed to address this:

A group of concerned Australian health care researchers and providers has set up an organisation that aims to discourage universities from offering accreditation in unproven medical therapies. The group would also like such therapies to be removed from claimable benefits by health funds.
Currently 19 (out of 39) Australian universities offer courses in unproven and often bizarre treatments such as iridology, aromatherapy, homeopathy and chiropractic.

Keeping up to speed with the norm of attacking Australian Skeptics as the proxy demon for anything evidence based, Meryl Dorey of the Australian Vaccination Network fallaciously wrote on this development:

There is an organisation in Australia which hates every natural therapy. They hate the healthcare practitioners and they hate the healthcare consumers who ‘turn their backs’ on Western medicine in favour of a range of other modalities which put no money in their pockets and take away their prestige. Worst of all, they hate anyone who chooses not to use  vaccines! That is the ultimate heresy, as far as they are concerned.

But it’s OK – because they have a plan and they have the money and media backing, they think, to bring this plan to fruition.

This group, the Australian Skeptics, has been instrumental in setting up the organisation, Stop the AVN.

Quite a lot of hatred to go with the free speech they are usually accused of suppressing. This is of course as noted before, simply scurrilous deflection from presenting any evidence or explaining missing funds. Stupidly many believers have taken up the trend. Meryl is under instruction from the Alliance for Health Freedom Australia to maintain the “enemy behind the curtain” slur on all things skeptical but ultimately it is very telling that Godwin’s Law out paces evidence provision in this matter.

Being tricked into conflict and betrayed by connivance is really what’s happening to many innocent minds. The big regret in some aspects is that heated young minds are misled as to the notion of skepticism and the aim of skeptic movements. Recently Adam Vanlangenberg, a Victorian school teacher and skeptic spoke on TV about the popularity of his lunchtime skeptic class.

Adam manages to capture in a few minutes a great deal of the bipartisan respect, tolerance and quest for verifiable knowledge that real skepticism is known for.

Adam Vanlangenberg on The Circle

Acupuncture: Essential Facts About A Major Scam

Posted in Alternative "medicine" scams, Big Placebo, Health, Scam by

Back in May 1998 a systematic review of published results from clinical trials and the country they are published in was, well… published.

Two studies were conducted. In one, trials in which the outcome of acupuncture was compared to placebo, no treatment or a non acupuncture intervention were studied. In the second study randomised, controlled trials (RCT) of non acupuncture interventions in China, Japan, Russia/USSR, or Taiwan were compared to those published in England. Regarding the study of acupuncture:

Research conducted in certain countries was uniformly favorable to acupuncture; all trials originating in China, Japan, Hong Kong, and Taiwan were positive, as were 10 out of 11 of those published in Russia/USSR.

It was also found that trials in the second group were skewed to produce favourable results in China [99%], Japan [89%], Russia/USSR [97%], and Taiwan [95%]. In England, “75% gave the test treatment as superior to control”.

No trial published in China or Russia/USSR found a test treatment to be ineffective.

Conclusion: Some countries publish unusually high proportions of positive results. Publication bias is a possible explanation. Researchers undertaking systematic reviews should consider carefully how to manage data from these countries.

In 2010 a systematic review of systematic reviews of acupuncture for depression stated in part:

Acupuncture is often advocated as a treatment for depression, and several trials have tested its effectiveness. Their results are contradictory and even systematic reviews of these data do not arrive at uniform conclusions. The aim of this review is to critically evaluate all systematic reviews of the subject with a view of assisting clinical decisions. […]

All the positive reviews and most of the positive primary studies originated from China. There are reasons to believe that these reviews are less than reliable. In conclusion, the effectiveness of acupuncture as a treatment of depression remains unproven and the authors’ findings are consistent with acupuncture effects in depression being indistinguishable from placebo effects.

So on top of favouritism to acupuncture in certain countries, notably China, there is also an overlay of unusually high results. Indeed as shown in many studies and reviews initial study design and publication bias in Asian countries favours acupuncture efficacy. A few minutes searching will confirm this over and again. Thus, we can confidently be skeptical about studies raised in defence of acupuncture and stand firm that it’s “success” stems from study design and publication bias.

Yet, there’s also the issue of mythology and outright fallacies presented time and again regarding acupuncture’s origins. Appeal to antiquity is a major thought stopper when it comes to how acupuncture works and the other hanky panky around “forces” and “energy flows”. Consider:

Acupuncture is a traditional technique developed over two thousand years ago based on the insertion of needles or more recently electrical stimulation, based on the Chinese medical theory that diseases are caused by blockages in the flow of energy within the body.

We can rather swiftly expose that story as a patently modern day fake. Some scam artists know that acupuncture as we know it, is only a few decades old. In reputable organisations or conventional medical service providers where it is offered, a cleverly worded non committal pitch, seems to please legal advisers whilst keeping the mystique alive. I particularly like this one from Arthritis M.D.:

Acupuncture is one of the key components of the traditional Chinese medicine system.  Chinese medicine was documented in China in the 3rd century B.C.  This system views the body… Traditional acupuncturists also believe… According to Chinese medicine… As acupuncture has evolved and spread across countries and continents, different acupuncture points have been reported.  Chinese theory…

It’s one of the very few that acknowledge (but do not admit) the fallacious creation of the vast majority of the more than 2,000 acupuncture points, or acupoints. There was originally 365 to correspond to days of the year. But thanks to Western marketing, bogus diploma courses, bad science and general unaccountability manifesting in mock up journals things got more convoluted and sciency. So what are the problems with the story of a 2,500 year old therapy? Fortunately other sciences can explain.

We’re asked to believe that the technology to make needles far thinner that hypodermic needles existed around 500 BCE. Just on that, Reflexologists claim a history of up to 5,000 years in their appeal to antiquity. Historiologically this is absurdity on steroids, even out-dating Moses by 1,600 years.

Earliest Chinese texts are from 3rd century BCE, and no mention of any needling is in evidence. By 90 BCE needling of infected wounds and bloodletting was reported. Archeological and anthropological evidence is robust and unambiguous. Needles used were huge. It was not until the 1600s that the technology to manufacture acupuncture needles existed. So, immediately we’re down to a generous 400 years.

In 1680 the first Western accounts of Chinese medicine [TCM was introduced by Mao in the 1960s] by Wilhelm Rhijn did not mention acupuncture points,”qi” or energy flow. Needles were shoved into wombs and skulls for “thirty respirations”.The USA did try this technique for drowning victims from 1826, reporting 100% failure and that they “gave up in disgust”. Western reports of “acupuncture” from around the early 1900’s mention not one word of the practice we’re today told is 2,500 years old. Most tellingly there are no points, qi or meridians in these reports.

In fact, it mirrored mechanical nociceptor stimulation and endorphin release, with needles jabbed into sites of pain. By the 1900s, “Qi” is still “vapour emitted by, or arising from food”. Meridians are still inert vessels/channels with no bodily association. So, we’re down to a few decades – but how few?

Enter… The French. Georges Soulie de Morant coined the usage of “meridian” to justify his belief that energy or “qi” moved throughout the body. He is the first properly documented human being to make that link. It was 1939. However, we had to wait until 1957 until another Frenchman, Paul Nogier, invented auricular acupuncture. Note this is not today’s acupuncture, nor the claimed ancient method. It is the notion of unseen energies. Similarly, today we hear much of non existent “toxins” where once we heard of disease carrying “Miasmas”. Some others in France accept this concept. Most French doctors claim this is “resurrecting an absurd doctrine from well deserved oblivion”.

So in respect of this practice supposedly a part of Chinese history, we’re down to 53 years, have no scientific or medical community support and seem to be nowhere near China. Also the Traditional Chinese Medicine [TCM] phrase is yet to exist also. Why? Interestingly enough, the only nation to strive to ban the acupuncture (of large needles jabbed into wounds, skulls and wombs) was China, between 1822 and WWII, under the Chinese Nationalist Government. Post Communist Revolution, Mao was faced with the reality of infection and disease as the few remaining Western or Soviet trained doctors worked in cities in a nation where 80% of the population was rural. An immediate problem for Mao was wide spread schistosomiasis. Vikki Valentine writes:

One of the Party’s first steps in medical reform called for massive campaigns against infectious disease. Thousands of workers were trained and sent out into the countryside to examine and treat peasants, and organize sanitation campaigns.


Enter his “Barefoot Doctors” who provided cheap and dangerous “alternative medicine”, and demonstrated the power of the Peoples Party when ordered to physically catch all fresh water dwelling snails capable of passing on the schistosoma parasite responsible for schistosomiasis. Ten million residents suffered from this and peasants called it “Big Belly”.

The schistosoma parasite when infectious swims about happily until it encounters a human. Then it burrows into the skin and becomes a schistosomula. It then sets up camp in the lungs or liver to mature.

Adults then infect the lungs and liver and also set off to invade the bladder, rectum, intestines, the portal venous system which carry blood from the intestines to liver, spleen, and lungs. Symptoms include seizures and the swollen belly.

A major platform of the Communist Party was a revolution in agriculture. A “Great Leap Forward” was needed in China. But Party leaders, including Chairman Mao Zedong, knew that improving the health of peasants was integral to increasing agricultural production.

What followed was a backlash against Western-style “elite” medicine. The “bourgeois” policies of “self-interested” physicians who only treated rare and difficult diseases were denounced as “disregarding the masses.”

Mao was pleased with reports that the disease was wiped out in up to 95% of areas where it had been endemic. He claimed his party could “cure what the powers above have failed to do”.

Mao’s government coined the term “traditional Chinese medicine” – TCM – including herbal medicine, crude acupuncture, moxibustion and more in the 1960’s. Mao himself despised the notion, never using any “TCM”. Vested interests had little trouble manufacturing an entire fake history which – ironically – we in the West could access with ease, from a nation practically able to suppress the flow of air, much less information.

Chinese do not use the TCM we have invented here in The West. In 1995 a group of visiting American medico’s were informed between 15-20% of Chinese use herbal medicine. Almost no Chinese medicine is used in and of itself but with mainstream medicine. It is considered a sign of poor class and ignorance by the Chinese in general to use any “TCM”.

The Australian Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine Association offer a celebration of meaningless “qualifications”, codes of ethics and standards, all carefully crafted by themselves. So, what’s happening within this multi-billion dollar industry that need face no medical tribunals, provide data nor adhere to Australian Medical Standards?

Today it is a Western marketing success that grew following Communist Dictator Mao’s smirking at – then – superior economies. Unable to apply widespread Western medicine, alternatives were used. The West was assured this was successful and superior. We were scammed via our own gullibility about the far East and The Orient, still are by the Wellness Industry and China has indeed had the last laugh. Acupuncture produces a documented placebo effect. If you think youʼre getting it, it works, whether you are, or not. Itʼs you, the recipient who does this “mystical thing”. Harriet Hall writes in Science Based Medicine:

In the best controlled studies, only one thing mattered: whether the patients believed they were getting acupuncture. If they believed they got the real thing, they got better pain relief – whether they actually got acupuncture or not! If they got acupuncture but believed they didnʼt, it was less likely to work. If they didnʼt get it but believed they did, it was more likely to work.

Acupuncturists can rationalize with great ingenuity. In a recent study using sham acupuncture as a control, both the sham placebo acupuncture and the true acupuncture worked equally well and were better than no treatment. The obvious conclusion was that acupuncture was no better than placebo. Their conclusion was that acupuncture worked and the placebo acupuncture worked too!

Certainly there are ancient practices involved in the modern TCM plaguing the growing hokus pokus that constitutes the “Wellness Industry” yet acupuncture is not one of them. What we have today is not a 2,500 year old practice but a relatively modern expression of bad science derived from archaic ignorance that’s been very recently polished and refined to seem like genuine therapeutic intervention. At it’s very best acupuncture may well be responsible for releasing endorphins. It is a placebo and thus as a reliable mode of treatment is utterly and absolutely useless.

Of course many herbs can have demonstrable effects. In truth those that do are few and regulation is poor. Contamination with mercury, arsenic and lead is common whilst interaction with genuine drugs can lead to serious adverse reactions. All TCM must be regarded as harmful in that it delays access to efficacious evidence based treatment and is buoyed by the deceptions or well meaning but erroneous beliefs of practitioners. Proponents are welcome to subject their “medicine” for clinical trials, yet time and again they emerge as alternatives to medicine.

To argue there has been an unbroken chronology of superior “natural” therapies is simply false. It’s a common myth proffered by the Wellness Industry. Archaeology is absolute in producing evidence that humans have for many thousands of years died much, much younger and from painful chronic diseases that were quite simply beyond treatment. Diseases we today do not encounter in developed nations. Like any alternative to medicine acupuncture cannot survive RCT except to emerge time and again as placebo.

Australia would do well to review how much we spend on education and insurance for this slick ritual.