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"This feels...good?"

If you have read my post on the efficacy of acupuncture, then you already know that science considers acupuncture to be nothing beyond placebo. However, it still occurs throughout the world, and is not without its share of problems.

A new study concludes that 86 people have been killed over the last 45 years by the acupuncture procedure, mainly because of punctured hearts and lungs (and not sterilizing needles). I am well aware that modern medicine has inadvertently killed orders of magnitude more people, but this is irrelevant in this case. All medical procedures are prone to mistakes and complications, the difference here is the cost/benefit analysis.

Acupuncture

  • Seeks to cure your [insert illness]=benefit
  • Does not work beyond placebo=cost
  • Can not help serious ailments (with placebo) like cancer, and will bow out to modern medicine=cost

Modern Medicine

  • Seeks to cure your [insert illness]=benefit
  • Will actually fix your problem outright (surgery, drugs, therapy etc.)=benefit
  • Is the only treatment for serious ailments=benefit

I, for one, would rather use a clinically effective treatment (which acupuncture is not) than put my trust in thousand-year old charts and tradition. The answer is not train acupuncturists better (though that would decrease the deaths), but to eliminate it altogether, and allow medicine to move forward. As long as we support medical ideas that are not science-based, there will always be an “ancient/traditional/natural/spiritual” practitioner somewhere, taking someone’s money for the benefit that is tantamount to sugar pills.

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