Acu Trial Germany

[Guest guest]

Robert

 

Thanks for the update and clarification.

 

What stands out FIRST & FOREMOST in this scenario has to do with money and

therefore we should first understand why healthcare reimbursement companies do

not wish to pay for acupuncture treatments. They make their money by investing

the high cost of premiums. As allopathy goes.....especially in syndromes of

chronicity....the pay-out for claims is high which therefore insures that the

premiums are high. The claims pay-out these companies are supposed to make more

often than not.... are derelict in paying anyone. In the end - acupuncture or

any wholistic traditional medicine which would certainly reduce claims

pay-outs would in facty reduce premiums and for their bottom line profits that

would

NOT be desirable.

 

Let us now briefly address - placebo. When one invades the body with a

needle, no matter where it is inserted......the result is certainly NOT placebo.

There is definitely a reaction and such reaction should not be passed off as

meaning that acupuncture overall is useless because of a totally incorrect

premise

regarding placebo.

 

The research was for problems which can be categorized as YIN stagnation

often coupled with deficiency problems as seen in chronic back pain; chronic

arthritis of the knees; tension headache; and migraine. Acupuncture as defined

by

the National Institute of Health in 1997 refers to a family of modalities which

includes but is not limited to the insertion of acupuncture needles.

Acupuncture needles compared to other modalities are within a domain one may

call YANG

style treatment. Applied to a YIN and/or DEFICIENCY problem....it will have

an effect but NOT as great an effect as a YIN style treatment such as GuaSha

and/or BaGuan(cupping). As posted many times before....the synergy I developed

utilizing both together resulting in what Dr. Wu, BoPing has coined the name BA

GUA FA has a much superior result than only the use of acupuncture needles.

And in this kind of research would have proved without a shadow of a doubt that

within this definition of acupuncture - the results would have out surpassed

anything the standard care was capable of accomplishing...which is not much.

 

Then there is the problem of how many well trained acupuncturists treated

these 500,000 participants. Were these MDs with minimal training? Maybe this was

the reason why the sham acupuncture from the real acupuncture had no

discernable difference.

 

Doesn't anyone think it curious that these studies often is about acupuncture

needles? Although it is what we are primarily taught - it seems to me that

one reason for this has been the long time political suppressive manuevers by

some. Needles can be argued that they belong to western medical domain and that

they might even be more effective than anything else. Well - I can tell you by

experience that although they are very effective in certain disorders such as

blunt trauma and nervous systems syndromes - in chronic cases such as picked

for this research.... other body work modalities would have had a more

astounding result.

 

And so we see that........ " Professor H J Trampisch from Bochum University,

provides HIS answer. When asked whether these results demonstrate the success of

acupuncture his response was decisive: " No, this cannot be. In our studies,

we clearly determined

that acupuncture will be deemed effective only if it is significantly

superior to sham acupuncture " .

 

Who is he that such a statement lacking any logic would be or should be

accepted? The REAL issue should be about the uselessness of standard medical

care

as seen in the statement..... " It doesn't matter where we stick the acupuncture

needle, the patient improves in any case, and this can only be due to a

placebo response. " Logic should then have us LOOK at standard medical care and

throw it OUT if sticking a needle anywhere in the body does better. If we accept

to cal it placebo acupuncture which improves the patients condition beyond the

standard of medical care.....the focus should be on the failure of standard

western medical care.

 

What they are doing is called prestidigitation. Magicians use it to distract

the observer from the truth. In this case...the truth being that western

medicine for the most part is barbaric when it comes to chronic syndromes.

 

Why doesn't someone in Germany speak-out to these issues especially to this

Professor's incorrect and illogical public statements? Collectively we need to

voice the real truths when we see/hear such garbage.

 

Richard A. Freiberg, OMD, NMD

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

Published in the The Guardian Newpaper 16/3/04

 

regards to all

 

Robert McLinton

 

Medicine man

An end to 'free' acupuncture sessions? No wonder doctors and

patients got the needle

 

Edzard Ernst

Tuesday March 16, 2004

The Guardian

 

It is reported by the British Medical Journal this week that a study

in the UK has indicated that acupuncture could be helpful for

migraine sufferers. In Germany, however, where researchers have

conducted the largest clinical trials of acupuncture ever

undertaken, the results are not so clear cut. About 500,000 patients

were included in these ambitious projects which are sponsored by

four large health insurance companies. Previously, acupuncture

research suffered from the fact that clinical studies were small,

often too small to allow meaningful conclusions. A typical trial

would include 50 patients and anything bigger than 100 was already

seen as remarkable.

 

Even the background of these mega-studies is fascinating. In October

2000, the German authorities decided that the evidence for

acupuncture was not sufficiently convincing for inclusion in the

list of interventions qualifying for reimbursement from health

insurance companies. Henceforward Germans would have to pay for

acupuncture out of their own pockets, as do most people in Britain.

 

This announcement created uproar - German doctors who had previously

used acupuncture, and received money from health insurers for it,

feared that their income would decrease. After intense lobbying it

was agreed that acupuncture would be put to the test, and that

German doctors experienced in acupuncture could participate in these

trials. Crucially, they would be paid for doing so. So doctors were

happy to take part and patients thought this was a good way of

continuing to enjoy " free " acupuncture treatments.

 

Several " cohort studies " were started as part of the overall

project. These are investigations where all patients receive

treatment and the results are monitored and compared to their

respective baseline values. Lacking a comparison or control group,

such results have to be interpreted with the greatest of caution.

But the researchers from Munich, Berlin and Bochum were also keen to

embark on more rigorous tests. So they initiated four large

controlled clinical trials to determine the usefulness of

acupuncture for four conditions: chronic back pain; chronic

arthritis of the knees; tension headache; and migraine. These trials

also involved univer sity departments at Marburg, Heidelberg, Bochum

and Mainz.

 

Patients were allocated at random to one of three treatment groups:

real acupuncture plus standard medical care; sham acupuncture

(needles were simply stuck into non-acupuncture points) plus

standard medical care; or standard medical care alone. The trials

are not yet finished - they were due to end about now, but

recruitment was slow and recently it was announced that the deadline

has been extended until the end of this year. Preliminary results

were leaked nevertheless. They are intriguing: adjunctive

acupuncture turned out to be better than standard care but sham

acupuncture yields the same benefit as " real " acupuncture.

 

This is perplexing because it could be interpreted in two

dramatically different ways. The optimist (or acupuncturist) would

say that the results demonstrate the effectiveness of acupuncture -

adding it to standard care improves the outcome compared to standard

care alone. Hence acupuncture must be a good thing. On the other

hand, the pessimist (or scientist) would insist that these results

prove that acupuncture is merely a placebo therapy with no " real "

effects of its own. It doesn't matter where we stick the acupuncture

needle, the patient improves in any case, and this can only be due

to a placebo response. Hence acupuncture has no " real " value.

 

So do the German mega-studies suggest effectiveness or

ineffectiveness? Apparently, there is less room for interpretation

than one might think. One of the German investigators, Professor H J

Trampisch from Bochum University, recently provided the answer. When

asked whether these results demonstrate the success of acupuncture

his response was

decisive: " No, this cannot be. In our studies, we clearly determined

that acupuncture will be deemed effective only if it is

significantly superior to sham acupuncture " .

 

If this is true, the biggest trials in the history of acupuncture

might be the beginning of the end of this therapy.

 

.. Edzard Ernst is professor of complementary medicine at the

Peninsula Medical School at the universities of Exeter and Plymouth.

 

 

Guardian Unlimited C Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

I despair at the trials and research been presently conducted and the german

one fits into this picture. They make a number of assumptions which I don't

experience in real life.

 

That all acupuncturists are equal in skill,

that all people with the same symptoms are to be treated equally,

that a particular acupuncture point can be sinonimous in effect to a

particular drug.

That the levels of environmental stresses of individuals are disregarded

(hard to quantify but a real spanner in the works fro some people).

 

That one can treat a symptom in isolation from the rest of the human system

and disregard all the other improvements.

 

how does one compare health? perhaps trials on levels of health would be

more interesting than levels of sickness.

 

I would like to see research that compares people that have kept away from

western doctors ( ie. drugs, vacinations, surgery) and relied on

alternative medicine and exercise.

 

(apologies for the rant )

 

salvador

 

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[Guest guest]

I despair at the trials and research been presently conducted and the german

one fits into this picture. They make a number of assumptions which I don't

experience in real life.

 

That all acupuncturists are equal in skill,

that all people with the same symptoms are to be treated equally,

that a particular acupuncture point can be sinonimous in effect to a

particular drug.

That the levels of environmental stresses of individuals are disregarded

(hard to quantify but a real spanner in the works fro some people).

 

That one can treat a symptom in isolation from the rest of the human system

and disregard all the other improvements.

 

how does one compare health? perhaps trials on levels of health would be

more interesting than levels of sickness.

 

I would like to see research that compares people that have kept away from

western doctors ( ie. drugs, vacinations, surgery) and relied on

alternative medicine and exercise.

 

(apologies for the rant )

 

salvador

 

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