Tag: Richard Niemtzow
Put it Over There with the Others: More “Promising Preliminary” Evidence for Acupressure
Another day, another legitimate journal publishing a preliminary study practically designed to spit out a positive result. Also, acupuncture robots?
Damn the evidence and regulations: VA goes full speed ahead with medical pseudoscience
The VA recently mandated inclusion of acupuncture, reiki, reflexology and other CAM in veterans medical benefits and will require that they be offered at VA medical facilities, ignoring the lack of evidence and federal rules on what medical benefits can be covered.
The Primo Vascular System: The N-rays of Acupuncture?
Acupuncture meridians and acupoints are imaginary until proven otherwise. Anatomists have never been able to detect them by microscopy or autopsy, and they are not mentioned in anatomy textbooks. For decades, acupuncturists have been trying to prove that their pre-scientific belief system is grounded in scientific reality. Now they are telling us that acupuncture meridians and acupoints have been discovered in the...
A very special issue of Medical Acupuncture
Every so often, our “friends” on the other side of the science aisle (i.e., the supporters of “complementary and alternative medicine”—otherwise known as CAM or “integrative medicine”) give me a present when I’m looking for a topic for my weekly bit of brain droppings about medicine, science, and/or why CAM is neither. It’s also been a while since I’ve written about this...
“Battlefield acupuncture”?
THE SCENE: Iraq, Afghanistan, or anywhere where U.S. troops are risking life and limb. THE TIME: The not-too-distant-future. Maybe even 2009. Joe is on patrol. It’s the middle of summer in the desert town. The air hangs heavy, hot, dry and dusty, like a blast furnace firing steel. The heat penetrates Joe’s 80 lb pack in much the same way the heat...