Wolfscout1 wrote:

hrm  sounds like something the medical community puts out as they dislike alternative modalites taking away their ability to sway the public with their quest for dollars.
A report on the book noted......

Don't pay any attention to skydivephil.  He's been doing nothing but going into serious discussions and pooh-poohing them and trying to get them off track.  Troll.  Don't feed it.

What I came here to ask was... what do acupuncturists typically charge?  I'm sure I could find out other ways, but how better than to ask people who've had it done?  If you're on a low budget, can most of them work with that?

Wolfscout1 wrote:

hrm  sounds like something the medical community puts out as they dislike alternative modalites taking away their ability to sway the public with their quest for dollars.
A report on the book noted......

I would reccomend reading the book rather than someone's misconceptions about it. the criticisms listed are unfounded for the following reasons:

"1. If their science cannot explain how it works , then it cannot work. Very arrogant that."

If you read the book they say the complete opposite. They explain at length that if the evidence is good for a treatment it doesnt matter whether we can explain it or not. In fact they do give credit to those alternative medicines that do have evidence behind them.

"2. Clinical trials are time constrained, and this skews results and eliminates other results."

There have been many clinical trials on accupuncture , clealry a good study takes time to do, one could do a short study but that would be poor quality, what would that acheive?

"3. Medical critics say clinical trials are lacking for alternative medicine, and they are, but this only seems to concern medical critics. Alternative practitioners use treatments that they believe work , regardless, and patients keep visiting these practitioners because they also believe it works, regardless."

Anecdotes are not regarded as good evidence because with an anecdote, one cannot telll whether  it was the treatment that made someone better or whether they would have got better without the treatment anyway.
Clinical trials have been done on accupuncture and this books details the results of those studies, someone with an open mind might want to read that.

"4. Anecdotal data over millenia are completely disregarded by medical critics. The fact that treatments are still around after millenia counts for nothing ?"
Anecodtal evidence may occasionaly lead us to some important  truths. Anecodtal evidence led Jenner to treating small pox with cow pox. But it can also decieve, anecdotal evidence kept blood letting in use for thousands of years unti trial showed it to be innefective. Clincial trials are always more important that anecodotes.  The cincial trial is a relativelry recent invention and so thousands of years of practise is no defence if trials show lack of efficacy.

"5. Drugs, as prescribed, are responsible for over 100,000 deaths in the USA every year. Deaths by alternatives are close to zero."
This is statement is irrelvant. The book reviews the evidence for various alternative medicines. If every drug in the world instantly killed that would still not increase or descrease the effectivness of accupuncutre or any other alternative medicine.
Furthermore the number is unsocured and so unreliable. It is also out of context, even if true, all risks have to be comapred to benefits, it has to be asked were the drugs taken as prescribed? Alternative therapies can kill in themselves and can be dangerous if someone takes a treatment that lacks evidence for a serious condition over a treatment that has evidence.

"6. 75% of Oncologists say they won't use chemo if they had cancer."
Again this book is not about chemotherapy, so why is this relevant? Again the statistic is unsoucred. Again it is out of context, chemo is a nasty busniess and so is not used if it can be avoided, that does not mean it is innefective.


"7. Drug companies are scouring the rainforests and consulting shamen to find plants so that they can extract PATENTABLE chemicals from these plants. For an industry so scornful of alternatives, that seems a bit ironic."

If you actually read the book the you will find nothing ironic about this, they are very clear that plants can have medicinal benefits and list those used by at medicien that are effective whilst warning against those that are not.

"8. Clinical trials are notorious for being biased to favor findings desired by drug comapnies, and bad results are buried. "

There is publication bias and this is discussed in detail in the book, again if you read it you would know this.

The book is written by the UKs only Proffessor of Alt Medicine and one the uKs top science writers, Neither represent, defend or have been emplyed by any drug company , so any of discussion of conventional drugs is irrelvant to this issue. The book is nto about drugs, but is  about the evidence for various alt medicines and has an excellent chapter on acccupuncture. I suggest keepign an open mind and reading "Trick or Treatment" by Edzard Ernst and Simon Singh.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Trick-Treatment … 0593061292