Acupuncture appears to show results.

[JJM]

Yet another opinion from Dr. Novella
"Why I Am Skeptical of Acupuncture"

 

[BillyJoe]

Another reason why there should be a requirement to submit every trial protocol to an expert panel before proceeding with it.

 

[BillyJoe]

Yet another opinion from Dr. Novella
"Why I Am Skeptical of Acupuncture"

Pretty good, but I still question the need for three arms in a controlled clinical trial:

Controlled clinical trials of actual acupuncture (uncontrolled trials should only be considered preliminary and are never definitive) typically have three arms: a control group with no intervention or standard treatment, a sham-acupuncture group (needles are placed but in the “wrong” locations or not deep enough), and a real acupuncture group. Most of such trials, for any intervention including pain, nausea, addiction, and others, show no difference between the sham-acupuncture group and the acupuncture group. They typically do show improved outcome in both acupuncture groups over the no-intervention group, but this is typical of all clinical trials and is clearly due to placebo-type effects.

This allows acupuncturists to claim that patients in the "acupuncture groups" do better than those in the control group.
If there were just two groups, a sham acupuncture group and a real acupuncture group, no such claims could be made.

The control group is not required because the sham acupuncture group is the proper control group in trials of acupuncture.

More recent trials have attempted to improve the blinded control of such trials by using acupuncture needles that are contained in an opaque sheath. The acupuncturist depresses a plunger, and neither they nor the patient knows if the needle is actually inserted. The pressure from the sheath itself would conceal any sensation from the needle going in.

Viola! And now we also have double blinding.

So, no excuses now for using protocols that we already know are unable to answer the question: Does acupuncture work?


BillyJoe