Talk:Acupuncture

This article is inappropriately negative. It's meant to be about Acupuncture, not 'Acupuncture Skepticism'

Acupuncture is a long-established form of treatment, coming from a pre-scientific background. The fact of this background does not in way, prove it is not effective or does not work -- that is a logical fallacy.

It is inappropriate for this page, intended to be about Acupuncture, to be hijacked to convey a clear skeptical POV. This page should be removed from the purview of the 'Skepticism Project'. They can write a counter-page if they want.

Acupuncture has been of significant scientific interest, for a long time. With many studies ongoing. It is unlikely it would be of such interest, in finding the means, if there were no effect.

Many current studies, appear to find it useful for Cardiology, Anasthesia as well as Musculo-Skeletal and other conditions.

Here are just a very few studies:

• [1]
• [2]
• [3]
• [4]
• [5]

There are dozens or hundreds more, searching PubMed alone. (Published under auspices of the US Government NIH).

I also challenge the objectivity & neutrality of skeptics -- very few surgical procedures have been validated by double-blind trials, and 'medical error' is a leading cause of death in industrialized countries.

• 195,000 deaths from errors in hospitals, per year in US: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/11856.php

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/deadbymistake/6555095.html

• up to 780,000 deaths from wider medical errors, per year in US:

http://www.ourcivilisation.com/medicine/usamed/deaths.htm

• [Iatrogenesis] [6]
• $19.5 billion cost per year, from medical errors in US

http://www.soa.org/news-and-publications/newsroom/press-releases/2010-08-09-med-errors.aspx

Where are the skeptics defacing pages, on surgery & Western medicine? I'm a supporter myself, but this a clear embedded bias which the skeptics seem too irrational & uninformed to acknowledge. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Twhitmore.nz (talk • contribs) 01:40, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

I call upon the editor to remove this page from the purview of the skeptic's group & edit the page, so it provides a genuine neutral view of Acupuncture rather than this negatively biased POV.

Thankyou.

Twhitmore.nz (talk) 00:49, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree that this is an article written from a skeptical viewpoint. The 'criticism' should be placed in a subsection. The bulk of the article should just inform about acupuncture and its principles and practice in a more neutral way. It is hard to know where to begin to put this right (I have very little experiecne of editing Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aaprescott (talk • contribs) 10:22, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Twhitmore.nz and Aaprescott, If you think that you have evidence to counter any of the "POV" claims in this article, or evidence to show that medical procedures or pharmaceutical treatments are dangerous or ineffective then please add them to WP in order to redress the "imbalance". If there are "dozens or hundreds" of studies showing that acupuncture works, please add them. Myself and the other editors can then assess the quality of these studies. Otherwise, stop whinging. WP is not a "conspiracy" of "skeptics". This page has not been "hijacked". You are free to add any information you want at any time, since WP is an open-access encyclopedia. But be warned that it is one in which claims (especially those pertaining to health and medicine) require evidence - if this presents an insurmountable problem for the alternative "therapies" that you believe "work" then tough luck. You'll have to post unsupported claims on your own websites. Famousdog (talk) 15:24, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

The above response is itself problematic. Characterising the criticims as 'whinging', and such like comments, amounts to making this personal. You have missunderstood the nature of the criticism and shown yourself to have a particular viewpoint. I added my comments to the previous one, and do not necessarily agree with all of them e.g. I make no claim of organized conspiracy.

Neutrality would explain the theory of Chinese medicine and include an evidence based medicine criticism. Not make such criticism the prevailing tone of the article. Andy — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aaprescott (talk • contribs) 10:54, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Please see WP:MEDRS, we require recent secondary sources. Particularly since the development of adequate shams in the form of nonpenetrating needles (around 2002) the evidence base for acupuncture has eroded. Also, what on earth does the number of surgical procedures have to do with acupuncture? Even if surgical procedures aren't justified by an adequate evidence base (which is more of a CAM talking point than a real concern) how does that magically make acupuncture more effective? Does the Toyota acceleration problem make the Yugo a better car? No it does not.

Evidence based medicine doesn't support TCM, and it barely supports the idea that poking people with needles can help with pain and nausea (which is the only part of acupuncture that's really got an evidence base). Neutrality means "within the expert opinion", not "extremely positive". WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 21:37, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

17th March 2011 I tried to make some fairly small changes that would make this article more neutral. But I did not remove any of the critical perspective. I was originally a psychiatric nurse and so I recognize the orthodox perspective is important. I also made some changes to incorect information. I am a practitioner of 30 years experience and the introductory section contains factual inacuracies. The description of the cause of disease is incorect it is desecribing mechanims (systems) not causes per se. The idea that their are 12 channels because of the twelve rivers of China could have been true at one time, I don't think that even that is certain, but is probably a redundant idea except as an historical note - presumably this is here simply to ridicule. My edits have all beeen removed. I recognize that there may be some technical deficiencies in my contribution especially in terms of sources, but undoing all of them seems to confirm a strong bias. There is clearly an attempt to maintain an 'evidence based medicine' perspective front and center, and this contravenes the Wikipedia policy of absolute neutrality. I attempted to report this non neutrality to wikipedia, but I could not find an easy way to do this. There seems to be no other mechanism than a war of editing! This is going to make me more cautious in my reading of Wikipedia articles in future. It seems that right would probably not prevail as caring form my patients probably does not allow me the time to devote to such a concerted effort. Andy Prescott B.Ac. (UK), Dipl.Ac. (NCCAOM) L.Ac. (NC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aaprescott (talk • contribs) 13:41, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Andy, I looked at your changes and you do not provide sources for your changes. For example, your changes to the lead don't seem to be supported by the source as it currently stands (the acupuncturetoday.com article). For example, your comments about causes being "a lifestyle that is not in accord with the Dao" are not supported by the current source, so you would need to add a new one to support this view. Your edits that TCM has "three classifications of causes" are similarly not supported by a citation. Your comments on metaphysics, empricism and syncreticism seem to reflect your own opinion, which counts as inappropriate synthesis or original research. You are not being unfairly treated here. I would be expected to provide similar citations for my own edits, as would anybody. And if we're fishing for credibility by posting our credentials, then you can call me Dr. Famousdog BSc(Hons) PhD. Famousdog (talk) 12:27, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Yep, we need sources. Since I'm just an editor, I'm just going to put my usual signature. Note that it has links to the full and abbreviated lists of policies and guidelines, feel free to check out both since they determine page content. For instance, per WP:RS we are supposed to use the best and most reliable sources available. I see the insistence on using peer-reviewed material from medicine, history and related fields as an effort to maintain a "high quality" page; it's certainly worth noting that actual evidence doesn't support the use of acupuncture for anything but pain and nausea. I don't know why we'd prefer the opinions of practitioners over opinions published in peer-reviewed journals where methodological rigor has been applied to the investigation. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 15:10, 18 March 2011 (UTC) Again, I'm just an editor

I agree, I came here to read about the mechanics, and with the opening statements such as, "Traditional acupuncture was developed prior to the understanding of human anatomy and cell theory upon which modern biology is based", "there is no anatomical or scientific evidence for the existence of qi or meridians; concepts central to acupuncture theory", "The evidence for acupuncture's effectiveness for anything but the relief of some types of pain and nausea has not been established", "Evidence for the treatment of other conditions is equivocal", "a 2011 review of review articles concluded except for neck pain acupuncture was of doubtful efficacy and accompanied by serious risks and adverse effects, including death"-- I didn't even feel the desire to continue reading. As for WLU, "opinions of practitioners over opinions published in peer-reviewed journals"-- Because peer-reviewed journals, unless it's a journal dedicated to acupuncture is just that-- an appeal to authority regardless of the authority's experience in the field. I don't go to a zoology journal to read about nutrition or neurology-- even though all are biological sciences. Each discipline specializes in different fields under the same biology umbrella, and this applies to medicine as well. I went to Britannica instead; the article there is much more objective and descriptive. I recommend it to other researchers until this article is a. cleaned up, and b. treated as description, not prescription. TheObserverEffect (talk) 20:09, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Please see WP:NPOV. A neutral article doesn't mean we write an article that just talks about a fringe idea and not give it the balance of what it really is. There is NO scientific evidence that supports the efficacy of acupuncture beyond a placebo, and even then the evidence is mitigated by the lack of sham controls. Moreover, given that there is no efficacy, the fact that there is a safety issue makes it worse. You risk your health to get no benefit. Sounds perfectly neutral. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 20:17, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Actually, that's not at all what NPOV means. we should strive to give a proper and neutral description of the topic without allowing editors to make 'factual' judgements about it one way or another. I haven't read this article yet, but I'll do that as I get a chance and see if any revisions are required to better the topic. --Ludwigs2 22:31, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes of course Ludwigs. Yours is the ONLY interpretation that matters. And of course, your revisions to this article is the ONLY one that is the truth.OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 00:18, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

OM - lol - going straight to the insults without any preliminaries? whatever happened to foreplay?

I think we can all safely ignore that last foray into argument-by-sarcasm. Do you have anything that's more relevant to the topic, or would you like to talk about me some more? --Ludwigs2 02:19, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Adverse Events

I changed this sentence to :" "A 2010 systematic review found that acupuncture has been associated with a possible total of up to 86 deaths over the years surveyed, most commonly due to pneumothorax."

The original sentence was this: "A 2010 systematic review found that acupuncture has been associated with total of 86 deaths over the years surveyed, most commonly due to pneumothorax."

The abstract statement:

Results: Reports of 86 deaths after acupuncture were found. Many are incomplete and causality may therefore be occasionally uncertain.

It also states this, which in the abstract is given no evidence, therefore appears as the author's personal perspective and speculation and was not included: "Due to under-reporting, these reports are likely to merely describe the tip of a larger iceberg." Soll22 (talk) 00:53, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Seems to me like your change made it better and more accurate. PPdd (talk) 00:58, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

You might also want to add a mini-"plain English" definition of pneumothorax, or at least create a link for it. I don't know what pneumothorax is. PPdd (talk) 01:08, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Hmm.. I noticed that pneumothorax is not mentioned in the abstract. Until we see that it's actually part of the article text, I'm not sure it would be ok to even leave pneumothorax in there. Anyone have a copy?Soll22 (talk) 02:02, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Here is a primary source for most of the above wording:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1755-9294.2010.01075.x/pdf

Most people associate pneumothorax with a big gaping wound to the chest, but apparently, at least according to this source, small acupuncture needles can result in a form of the life-threatening problem. A review would be better, for sure.Desoto10 (talk) 21:28, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Proposed deletion from lead

Yin and Yang symbol for balance. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, good health is believed to be achieved by a balance between Yin and Yang.

Dosage of Flying squirrel feces depends on the balance of yin and yang

I'd like to delete "No force corresponding to qi (or yin and yang) has been found in the sciences of physics or human physiology" from the lead as this is implicit in the earlier "...metaphysical energy known as qi." I know the latter doesn't cover yin and yang, but this is an article about acupuncture, and I'm thinking yin and yang are a bit tangental to acupuncture. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 15:54, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm not so sure about that. Believers won't notice anything that is implicit. Such a statement ("metaphysical energy") will only be understood by science-based thinkers (metaphysical=unproven=a red flag), and many laymen won't notice it either. Believers, by the very nature of belief, will usually equate their metaphysical beliefs with objective reality. It's common for there to be no sense in their minds of "I believe this, but it's not proven". To them it's the same thing, which is why they often make statements that are pseudoscientific in nature, which they will vigorously defend as scientific and proven. The phrase in question is very well sourced (5 refs) and I think the explicit statement is necessary. -- Brangifer (talk) 17:37, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

I thought yin and yang were central to acupuncture, not tangential. Its why qi meridians are poked at, in a belief that this will restore the balance of yin/yang. Isn't yin/yang imbalance that the whole idea of what acupunture is up to? And as just pointed out, how is a layperson who never took a physics class supposed to know what "metaphysical" refers to (even an expert may think it refers to ontology or epistemology, not the "supernatural"? PPdd (talk) 18:02, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Quite correct. If it's not based on yin and yang, and on meridians, it's not "acupuncuture", but just needling. -- Brangifer (talk) 18:41, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Shows how little I know about this belief system. I thought yin and yang was a fundamental of TCM, not peculiar to acupuncture, and this is an article about acupuncture. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 01:37, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

I think it needs to remain explicit. Per Celestial Lancets, yin and yang are quite central to acupuncture. Acupuncture is a subset of TCM and the needles are used to manipulate qi, which is comprised of yin and yang. The whole thing is confusing and unscientific, but there is definitely a relationship within the system. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 02:41, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying that. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 07:35, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Anthonycole, let me further clarify. There are the five Shen spirits - (Emporor, Will, Intellect, Etherial Soul, Corporal Soul), and the Emperor rules over the others as vassals. Because of this, there are five associated yin organ systems (Heart, Kidney, Spleen, Liver, Lungs), and half of the 5 organ systems are yin-Solid, so the other half must be yang-hollow, and thus Five Phases for Five associated elements that make up everything (Earth Fire Water Metal Wood), all because there are Five associated planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn), and of course, Five associated directions (North, East, South, West... ... uh, er, oh yeah, and Center of course), thus because there are Five Tastes (Bitter, Salty, Sweet, Sour, Pungent), they must all tie together, so because also there are 4 natures – (Cold, Hot, Warm, Cool), and there are 12 rivers, 365 days so there are 12 meridians and 365 1/4 acupoints... or ... or ... lets make that 20 meridians, because of the number of organs systems, which is 5. There is also of course Blood, which sometimes flows in the wrong vessels so acupunture is needed, and the blood is self propeleed, not by the pumping of the heart, but by Qi, which balances the Yin and Yang that hold this sentence together, unless attacked by Pathogens with Toxicity, etc. Then there are relationships between each and every once of these things, and I will let you do the math on that. Anyway, all this gets figured out so you can tell if you need to ingest human feces decocted in licorice, or mercury, lead, strychnine, arsenic, and aconite with tiger's penis, or if you need to add some spirit of hanged criminal with unbrushed tooth scrapings and a some human breath, make sure the aconite was planted on the solstice so that it only grows while yin is ascending, and that your door to your house opens in the right direction, and don't go thinking a "point" is not 3-dimensional, or you might get confused again, and the acupuncture won't work.

• There. Now its as clear for you as it is for me. (and I almost got it all exactly right, according to the ancients. How could knowledge that is 5,000 years old possibly be wrong?) :) PPdd (talk) 08:14, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

And don't forget when yin and yang indicate acupuncture point 365 1/4 have mugwort burned on it until your skin blisters, that the Chinese Medical Herbology and Pharmacology notes that - flying squirrel feces has a "distinct odor" that "may decrease patient compliance" with ingesting it. :) PPdd (talk) 08:33, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Missing from the article - "wearing gloves is not mandatory"

wearing gloves is not mandatory, though they should be used when there is anticipated risk. Anyone know of an RS for this? PPdd (talk) 18:12, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Wow! The UofM should be notified that their noticeboard is being misused to push pseudoscientific BS. -- Brangifer (talk) 18:44, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Someone is not professionally dressed. Too much skin showing. The emperor’s new clothes.

Male on male contact.

Did you remember the condoms?

• Some new editors at TCM/Acupuncture related articles only became editors because they contend the new age dress style of the moxibustion provider showed at right showed too much skin. One described the woman as “alluring” as his edit summary to delete the image. Another deleted it as "unprofessionally dressed". Another said she “should be wearing a lab coat”. She is performing moxibustion on an already inserted needle.
• Why has no one noticed or complained about the real obscenity? Which image is best for WP to portray?
• The WP acupuncture related articles cite reviews finding acupuncture is “safe”. But they are all qualified with “if properly done.” How often is it properly done?
• I contend that there is an obscenity in one of these image at right. It is the image of male to male contact and penetration. The male acupuncturist is not wearing his latex. Who is it that is unprofessionally dressed and underdressed with too much skin showing? PPdd (talk) 07:24, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't see a proposed edit in the above. Please remember that wp:NOTFORUM.LeadSongDog come howl! 08:43, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

This is a subsection. The proposal is implicit in the context of the supersection and previous discussion at the TCM talk page. An an army of SP/MEAT SPA protesters suddenly all opened editing accounts, and objected to the image of the woman on the grounds that she was "unprofessionally dressed", "showing skin", and "alluring", and that she should be "wearing a lab coat". Thus it was claimed that "WP was giving acupuncture a bad name". To respond to the protests and avoid the SP/MEAT edit warring, the image was reasonably removed from this article and at TCM, and the male on male picture kept here and added at TCM. Now read the supersection above and the proposal should be clear. :) PPdd (talk) 08:58, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

So to summarize, you are proposing a new caption for the upper photo, to read "Practioners do not consistently wear gloves"? And you needed four paras to say that? LeadSongDog come howl! 15:36, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

I was not sure what my exact proposal was. It was nonverbal, based on the pictures. I just knew there was one in them. I like your proposal if we can find RS for it. But that might be too extreme for an image caption at the very top of the article (it would be a good caption for the very top image if this was a skeptic's web page), which would be UNDUE. So expanding your idea (1) Find RS that gloves are not rquired as in real medicine. (2) Find a good representative image (maybe similar to the one with the woman but less controversial). (3) relabel this image as you suggest and move it down to the "safety" section. PPdd (talk) 16:59, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Holy shit! Is this dead horse still being kicked around? Seriously PPdd, you're really damaging your credibility here. Drop this crap and move on. You're going to end up in arbitration over this and I can guarantee you you'll lose big time. This isn't the kind of stuff to joke around with. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:02, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Hey, one can get tannic acids by beating a dead horse hide. The dead horse is the new age lady doc pic. I was half joking, and half thinking there is something to the irony here, but couldn't put my finger on it. But LeadSongDog seems to have pulled the essence of the irony in his suggestion. I modified it to be to put some other acu-photo at top , and caption this hand-hand photo with a "they don't wear gloves", if it is both true and has RS. PPdd (talk) 07:03, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

NPOV

This article is not neutral and is factually inacurate. As a begininer to Wikipedia I am very frustrated by the unrelenting resistance to change that I am encountering. This in itself I believe is contrary to Wikipedia policy that is supposed to be cooperative. People should be helping to make the article neutral, and accurate, and helping resolsve any technical inadequacies in my entries, not just hitting 'undo'. Whether intended or not this just conveys the impression that some editors are determined that no one will change thei 'point of view' of these entries.

The introduction is not a neutral statment. It is critical from an 'Evidence Based Medicine' point of view.

The statement about 'TCM' is inacurate. Japanese, Korean practitioners woudl not identify themselves as practicing TCM, 38% of British practitioners do not practice TCM their approach having more Japanese origins. (I can quote a source for that). TCM is identified with modern Chinese practice. On the TCM page it also fails to make this clear, and in fact treats Classical Chinese Medicine and TCM as synonymous - which is also inacurate.

The statement about what produces disease is inacurate it compares 'mechanisms' of Chinese medicine with 'causes' in Western medicine. Turn this round and I would say that Western medicine beleives that illness is 'produced by disturbances of lymph cells, and circulatory systems, and Chinese medicine beleives that disease has physical causes in climatic exposure, parasites, emotional disturbance.'

The statement that the meridians are based upon the 12 rivers of China comes from a quote in the Ling Shu - it does not prove this. Simply that the Chinese at one time made an anaology. Given that there were originally only 11 meridians this anaology may have come later. In the Ling Shu it is simply a mmnemonic device. And most practitoners would have never heard of this. If the Chinese had found through experience that there were 14 channels they would have changed it. The only purpose of this information in context seems to be to portray acupuncture in the worst possible light.

I notice the TCM page is under a dispute resolution process. If I knew how to initiate this I would do. Isn't there anyone else out there who knows how to do this? 66.57.104.142 (talk) 11:48, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

I refer you to this thread and my responses. If you think there is a problem with the article stop huffing-and-puffing and do something. Just remember that you will be expected to provide reliable sources for statements that you make. Famousdog (talk) 12:33, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

The only interesting thing in that post was the allusion to an actual source, please provide the source that many practitioners do not adhere to the meridian/qi theory (I'm assuming what the "TCM" bit is referring to) so we can integrate it into the page. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 15:04, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Hear, hear. This quote from the page is hilarious:

A prominent example of this difference appears in an article appearing in the Journal of Chinese Medicine, which describes the cause of bleeding from the mouth and nose as "Liver fire rushes upwards and scorches the Lung, injuring the blood vessels and giving rise to reckless pouring of blood from the mouth and nose."[68] Science based medicine would look for some other cause, for example, a tuberculosis bacterial infection, and not consider other causes.

Wtf does that last line have to do with acupuncture?! ArlenCuss (talk) 11:31, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but how can "Evidenced-based medicine" or evidenced-based anything be a bias? Someone is either biased or is basing their conclusion on evidence. It certainly would be POV to treat approaches to health based on superstition or tradition as equal in validity to approaches based on analysis of data, as the former is a demonstrably inferior way of understanding the universe. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.143.133.63 (talk) 12:27, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

new meta-meta analysis

• On-line
• Editorial
• Sciencebasedmedicine post

I'd like to take the time to integrate this, but I may not. Obviously anyone who wishes is free to do so, here they are! WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 12:27, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

I've got full text (and the Pain commentaty) on my desktop if anyone wants it. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 16:40, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Also another one from 2010 which I'm not sure if it's included or not: [7]. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 18:08, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Added the new Ernst review and editorial (and made some bold changes). Not sure whether its worth adding the other post. Famousdog (talk) 08:39, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

frequency of deaths & other adverse events?

I put a {{clarify}} tag on a statement in the lead[8]. (Please leave the tag until discussion has run its course, per WP:TAGGING.) The abstract for this paper says "Ninety-five cases of severe adverse effects including 5 fatalities were included", but it doesn't mention the frequency. Needless to say, a raw number of outcomes doesn't mean very much without knowing their frequently. Does the full text address this? (The abstract doesn't, and the full text requires a subscription.)

We should cite sources that mention the frequency -- ses this, and also an earlier Ernst paper that said: "According to accepted criteria, none (0/10,000 to 1.2/10,000) of these events was serious"[9][10]). We should also cite sources comparing acupuncture with other therapies, such as this one, and NIH: "One of the advantages of acupuncture is that the incidence of adverse effects is substantially lower than that of many drugs or other accepted medical procedures used for the same conditions."[11]) There is also a multiply-sourced statement in the lead that we can tie into: "There is general agreement that acupuncture is safe when administered by well-trained practitioners using sterile needles." Middle 8 (talk) 07:29, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

It appears you are conflating two authors named Ernst. Gernot and Edzard are very likely different people. The G. Ernst et al paper is of no use to us, it is a primary study, and a feeble one at that: a questionaire survey of a small group of practitioners in one country. The E. Ernst et al paper is somewhat better, but still based on a subset of practitioners in one country, all of whom were MDs or Chartered Physiotherapists in addition to their accupuncture training. This group would be expected to have a safer practice than another group trained solely in a traditional form of accupuncture. LeadSongDog come howl! 16:11, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

@LeadSongDog: I noticed two different Ernst's, but didn't conflate them. Please re-read: that first quote I cited was correctly attributed to E. Ernst. I understand the problems you point out with the papers I cited, but it's even worse not to give the sample size at all. Did Ernst et al. (2011) provide it in the full article, or even give an estimate? As I mentioned, it's not in the abstract. It would be great if someone with access could post the relevant parts of the article so we have some context. --Middle 8 (talk) 00:39, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Note that this review, which also lacks a sample size, found 202 adverse events in 35 years. Ernst et al. (2011) found 95 events in 10 years. While inclusion criteria for the two papers differed, the numbers aren't that far apart. But without sample sizes, those numbers don't mean much. --Middle 8 (talk) 00:39, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Still, "95 cases of severe adverse effects" is a meaningless number without reference to the sample group used. It's also likely to be insignificant - I mean, aspirin has a chronic overdose mortality rate of 25%, which had to rack up a lot of people before warning labels were required on bottles, but our article doesn't see fit to dwell on that fact. --Ludwigs2 17:17, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Strawman. False dichotomy. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 18:02, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Why would you say that? --Ludwigs2 18:04, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

It's all there. I try not to be as verbose as others around here.OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 00:53, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

(undent)@Ludwigs2: you hit the nail on the head when you said: "Still, "95 cases of severe adverse effects" is a meaningless number without reference to the sample group used. It's also likely to be insignificant..." See this for comparison of total deaths annually. --Middle 8 (talk) 00:39, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Logical fallacy. False dichotomy once again. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 00:52, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

@ Middle 8: wow, I would have guess a few hundred deaths a year from NSAIDs, not 7,600. that's somewhat disturbing.

@ OrangeMarlin: repeating the same point without explaining it does not help in understanding it. what makes you think this is a false dichotomy or strawman argument? You surely cannot be objecting to the request for a baseline figure (which is essential to any statistical statement...) --Ludwigs2 00:56, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

WP:TLDR.OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 01:01, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry, did you just sufggest that my two sentence (45 word) comment was too long for you to read comfortably? --Ludwigs2 01:05, 1 May 2011 (UTC)