Evidence of Acupuncture Effectiveness

Acupuncture Center

Practiced in Mid-Cities area since 1985

What is the Scientific Evidence of the Effectiveness of Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine? Where to Find?

By Dr. Chung-Hwei Chernly 10/20/03

Chinese Medicine is an old medicine that has been practiced in this world for more than three thousand years. Many patients have been going to see Chinese medicinal doctors for different kinds of diseases, and billions of them have been treated and gotten healed. There are probably millions of patients that need to see Chinese doctors to get healed every year on this world.

For example, in my clinic, there have been 12,709 patients, in past 10 years (1993 to 2003), who came to get acupuncture treatment for their headaches, migraines, pains in neck, shoulders, back, lower back, hips, legs, plus menstrual pain, abdominal pain, chest pain, flu and allergies, infertilities, etc., with 98% success rate. This means more than twelve thousands patients got well just in one clinic in Texas. How many more patients got well from acupuncture treatments in the world?

Over 47 states in the United States have passed acupuncture practice laws, which allow licensed acupuncturists to treat patients. According to the July 2003 report, there are 14,227 licensed acupuncturists practicing in this country, in almost all states. If any scientist wants to collect the data, over 14,227 evidences of effectiveness of acupuncture can be seen daily, if every clinic only has one patient each day. In my own clinic, 30-40 patients a day are treated, and over 98% of the patients receive pain relief. This is the evidence! Therefore, if every clinic only treats 10 patients per day, at least 142, 270 cases of evidence can be found every day just in the United States of America.

However, if you go to the library to find the evidence, you will be somewhat disappointed, because research papers are few. The reason is that acupuncture/Chinese medicine is not a new medicine. We really don't need to go back to start from animal testing. Even though, there have been quite a few scientists who started animal tests on cats, dogs, guinea pigs, etc. and thousands of papers have been already published. However, compared to the bone fusion surgery research papers, we believe the acupuncture/Chinese medicine research papers are still too few. We can boldly challenge the FDA and any authority with this: Give us the scientific research papers that we can find in the library to prove that "A Hamburger or Fried Chicken Can Satisfy a Hungry Man. And What Is the Theory Behind It?" Indeed, there are not many scientific research papers that can be found in a library for this subject. Therefore, somebody will make a conclusion that there is no evidence so far to prove that the hamburger or fried chicken can satisfy a hungry man.

The above conclusion sounds absurd and laughable, but that is what has happened in the medical field. Many medical experts, who usually hold a doctor's degree, are the decision makers. Those so called experts, with pride and prejudice, after reading some acupuncture research articles in the library, make an uninformed and biased conclusion: No evidence so far to support that acupuncture works.

Where should we find the evidence of a hamburger's ability to satisfy a hungry man? We should go to McDonald's, but not to the library. And where should we find the evidence of acupuncture to relieve pain and illness? Please check it out at the Acupuncture Center!