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Removal of Category 'Medicine'

@Roxy the dog: Please explain why you have removed the category Medicine from this article. I refer you to the lead of the article that says that "Acupuncture is a form of alternative medicine". Morgan Leigh | Talk 01:54, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Yes, and the article is in the "Alternative Medecine" category. So all is good. --McSly (talk) 02:00, 27 November 2018 (UTC)
What McSly said. -Roxy, the naughty dog. wooF 08:30, 27 November 2018 (UTC)
I'd like to refer interested editors in general and @Coffee.sleep.repeat: in particular to this page where I explain that a correct understanding of how categories work is the root of this issue. Morgan Leigh | Talk 07:06, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
So, now that you understand, are you going to stop adding spurious categories, or not? -Roxy, the naughty dog. wooF 08:42, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
Actually for those who insist that alt-med be defined as what doesn't work, and medicine as what does, acu should be in both categories because it works for a few things. --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 11:04, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
No it doesn't. It doesn't matter where you put the needles or even whether you put them in or not, any "effects" are small, transient, and only affect subjective outcomes self-reported by the patients. It is an absolutely classic fake treatment. Guy (Help!) 13:07, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
Can we have a source that supports that text? Morgan Leigh | Talk 22:58, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps you could start by reading the sources for the article. You will find that Guy has summarized the results of years of studies and reviews including the latest conclusions. I actually find that summary the best I have seen on acupuncture research in some time.MrBill3 (talk) 23:21, 3 December 2018 (UTC)

I always consider the 'effect' the acu equivalent of going "Pat, Pat, - 'There There'." -Roxy, the dog. wooF 00:55, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
@Roxy the dog: FWIW: WP:TALK 1st 2 sentences. Just sayin'. --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 11:04, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
@Middle 8:Hi M8, I've missed you. Have you seen our Sealioning article? -Roxy, the dog. wooF 14:10, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
@JzG: Yes, I've read the blogs where that opinion is expressed. Are those the sources you'd use to answer Morgan Leigh's question? NICE and Harrison's (better sources) say differently. Remember scientists use blogs for opinions and peer review for findings, and here peer review hasn't "caught up" with opinions/predictions (however prescient they may be). @MrBill3: Did you read that diff I used just above? (Better link for NICE/NHS scroll to "Uses of acupuncture" here.) Any summary excluding such sources is inadequate (MEDRS don't get better/more mainstream). --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 11:04, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
The function of science communicators is to succinctly summarise the research in lay terms. And as a lay summary that is hard to beat. Ernst's stage dagger needles conclusively demonstrated that insertion or not makes no difference, backing a number of other studies using other methods; there are a large number of studies showing that position is unimportant, and this is indeed obvious from the existence of multiple acupuncture traditions with different dogmas. The conclusion that acupuncture "affects" only subjective symptoms is also well-supported, as is the existence of adverse events up to and including death. I know you are a believer, but your belief is misplaced and that succinct lay summary of the evidence shows exactly why. Guy (Help!) 12:50, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
This is not about any editor's opinion as to the efficacy of Acupuncture. It is about the sources, using good ones and representing them accurately. The above comment sounds as if you are advocating using a blog rather than using peer reviewed sources. Morgan Leigh | Talk 22:15, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
This is a talk page. It is perfectly reasonable to use a lay summary from a expert sources (in this case both Edzard Ernst and Steve Novella, both of whom have a stellar reputation for critiquing alternatives to medicine). Guy (Help!) 22:49, 4 December 2018 (UTC).
We are not discussing the subject. We are discussing which sources are good to go in the article. In response to my post at the reliable sources noticeboard here you stated that acupuncture doesn't work but when asked there for a source to support your statement by @Slatersteven: you have offered nothing. I subsequently reiterated that question here when you said the same thing, using almost exactly the same words, to wit, "It doesn't matter where you put the needles or even whether you put them in or not, any "effects" are small, transient, and only affect subjective outcomes self-reported by the patients. It is an absolutely classic fake treatment."? You offered a blog in support of your proposition. I have provided three peer reviewed meta analyses that provide evidence of the efficacy of acupuncture for certain conditions. All three have been removed from the article with a claim that they are POV. I suggest that a blog is not a more reliable source than three peer reviewed meta analyses. Do you agree?
As a reminder there are two changes to be considered.
1)The article currently says;
"The evidence suggests that short-term treatment with acupuncture does not produce long-term benefits." Citing this source Wang SM, Kain ZN, White PF (February 2008). "Acupuncture analgesia: II. Clinical considerations". Anesthesia and Analgesia. 106 (2): 611–21 doi:10.1213/ane.0b013e318160644d
I suggest changing it to;
"One systematic review found little evidence of acupuncture's effectiveness in treating pain(sourced to Ernst E, Lee MS, Choi TY (April 2011). "Acupuncture: does it alleviate pain and are there serious risks? A review of reviews" (PDF). Pain. 152 (4): 755–64), while others have found it to be effective.
The sources I suggest citing for this change are;
Vickers, Cronin, Maschino, et al, (2012), Acupuncture for Chronic Pain:Individual Patient Data Meta-analysis, Arch Intern Med. 2012;172(19):1444-1453. doi:10.1001/archinternmed.2012.3654
Hopton, MacPherson, (2010), Acupuncture for Chronic Pain: Is Acupuncture More than an Effective Placebo? A Systematic Review of Pooled Data from Meta‐analyses, Pain Practice, Volume 10, Issue 2, March/April 2010, Pages 94-102
Kwon, Pittler, Ernst, (2006), Acupuncture for peripheral joint osteoarthritis: A systematic review and meta-analysis, Rheumatology, Volume 45, Issue 11, 1 November 2006, Pages 1331–1337, https://doi.org/10.1093/rheumatology/kel207
2)The article currently says;
"The evidence suggests that short-term treatment with acupuncture does not produce long-term benefits." and cited this source Wang SM, Kain ZN, White PF (February 2008). "Acupuncture analgesia: II. Clinical considerations". Anesthesia and Analgesia. 106 (2): 611–21 doi:10.1213/ane.0b013e318160644d
I propose we change it to more accurately represent the source to;
"A review of randomized, sham-controlled clinical investigations found that treatment with acupuncture is "effective in the short-term management of low back pain, neck pain, and osteoarthritis involving the knee" but that it does not produce long-term benefits."
I ask my fellow editors to please address these two proposed changes by answering these two questions, are these changes supported by these sources? Are these sources reliable for this text? Morgan Leigh | Talk 05:27, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
Sure, I'll address them. No, and no.
No because it replaces a factual summary with weasel words that make it sound as if only one or a few sources finds these facts. That's not true. There is no long term benefit from sticking needles into people, and it can cause adverse events up to and including death, so we don't give undue weight to the beliefs of those who fervently wish otherwise.
A reminder: acupuncture is an alternative to medicine based on the idea that all diseases are caused by disturbances in the flow of qi through meridians that can be rebalanced by inserting needles at specific points in the body. Qi does not exist, meridians do not exist, competing schools of acupuncture have different acupoints, assiduous research shows that it doesn't matter where you put the needles or even whether you stick them in at all, there is no credible evidence of any long-term effect and no credible evidence of objective effect.
It has taken a long time to design studies that properly blind and control, due to the invasive nature of acupuncture. The development of more sophisticated blinding and controls has fatally undermined the claims of acupuncture proponents. Acupuncture fans have spent years at this article trying to "balance" this with studies showing positive outcomes which virtually all share the same trifecta: 1. They deal with subjective outcomes; 2. they use self-reporting; 3. they are produced by people with a vested interest in acupuncture. Guy (Help!) 08:17, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
Which words exactly do you contend are weasel words?
If you are objecting to the use of the word one in the proposed sentence, "One systematic review found little evidence of acupuncture's effectiveness in treating pain, while others have found it to be effective." The word one is there because one review is cited for that statement whereas three are cited for the other statement. I note that the existing version says "The evidence suggests that..." which sounds as if all the evidence suggests, whereas in fact the statement is supported by one review. If you have more sources to cite for that finding I encourage you to add them and then it can say "Some reviews have found... while others..." which is super balanced. Morgan Leigh | Talk 08:51, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
I think it's obvious to those of us who are not True Believers. Casting this as "this one review said X" when the one review actually reflects the reality-based consensus is weaselly. It's also worth remembering that when the Cochrane study said "there is moderate-level evidence that the effect of acupuncture does not differ from sham acupuncture", the reality-based community recognised that this means it doesn't work whereas the True Believers claimed it as validating acupuncture because it's so great that even fake acupuncture works. That is the perfect exemplar of how the SCAM community reviews evidence. Guy (Help!) 12:17, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

There have been studies of acupuncture for decades. A very few studies have shown any effect and those results are evaporating as methodology evolves. There is what is called a preponderance of evidence that acupuncture has no long term benefit and that the short term benefits are slight and quite probably statistical anomalies or confounding factors. There is zero support for the theoretical underpinnings. There is zero evidence that the mechanisms proposed exist at all. There are significant risks and harm has resulted. The article must clearly represent that. Perhaps it is time to WP:Drop the stick. Take some time to read the archives and try not to rehash. Really this has been gone over. MrBill3 (talk) 10:22, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Instead of expressions of personal opinions can we please answer the question at hand? i.e. Are the specific sources I mentioned reliable and do they accurately represent the text proposed? Morgan Leigh | Talk 03:12, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
As I see it, much of the problem is down to the plethora of studies carried out on acupuncture which say very little. In the past a problem that has plagued this article is having huge lists of citations yet conveying little or no knowledge to the reader. So I agree, this is one of those occasions where we need decent tertiary commentary (or a review of reviews) in order to build a coherent article. Most of the scholarly tertiary sources are quite old now, so it's reasonable to use something from Ernst etc. I think. More recently, I think this piece[1] done for the NHS offers a reasonable overview of the current situations ... executive summary: evidence for acupuncture helping pain is weak, and even then there is doubt whether it's useful and/or cost-effective. Alexbrn (talk) 10:32, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
Not sure this has been posted already but here is a summary of all Cochrane reviews on acupuncture until Nov 2017: https://www.scienceinmedicine.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Cochrane-acupuncture-2017.pdf. Says it all really... Lucleon (talk) 10:41, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
What that list of reviews actually says is that you are presenting an incomplete list framed to a skeptical POV, complied by a renowned skeptic. That is not a complete list of all Cochrane reviews on acupuncture. If you go to the Cochrane site you will see that there are 122 Cochrane reviews about acupuncture while that list has only 42. The URL indicates the list you mentioned is from the Institute for Science in Medicine, which was founded by renowned skeptic David Gorski.
Bearing this in mind it is unsurprising to note the summaries on that list are framed to be a negative as possible. For example this study on fibromyalgia is summarized on that list as

The small sample size, scarcity of studies for each compassion, lack of an ideal sham acupuncture weaken the level of evidence and its clinical implication

whereas the conclusions of the author's of the review say in full,

There is low to moderate-level evidence that compared with no treatment and standard therapy, acupuncture improves pain and stiffness in people with fibromyalgia. There is moderate-level evidence that the effect of acupuncture does not differ from sham acupuncture in reducing pain or fatigue, or improving sleep or global well-being. EA is probably better than MA for pain and stiffness reduction and improvement of global well-being, sleep and fatigue. The effect lasts up to one month, but is not maintained at six months follow-up. MA probably does not improve pain or physical functioning. Acupuncture appears safe. People with fibromyalgia may consider using EA alone or with exercise and medication. The small sample size, scarcity of studies for each comparison, lack of an ideal sham acupuncture weaken the level of evidence and its clinical implications. Larger studies are warranted.

This exemplifies what is going on in this article at present. Evidence is being skewed to a skeptical POV. Morgan Leigh | Talk 03:12, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
Yes, the list is from a website made be renowned people, which makes the list only better in my opinion. Which Cochrane review on acupuncture are you missing? The 1-line summary from the website you single out is consistent with the complete summary: low to moderate-level evidence from studies with small sample size and a scarcity of studies for comparison.Lucleon (talk) 07:35, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
A renowned skeptic. There are 80 reviews missing from that list. It is not consistent with the summary because the summary doesn't make any mention that "acupuncture improves pain and stiffness in people with fibromyalgia". Morgan Leigh | Talk 08:23, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
"Scientific skepticism ... is a practical, epistemological position in which one questions the veracity of claims lacking empirical evidence." (Quote from Skeptical movement). I don't see what could be wrong with having such a position when we are discussing potential medical treatments. You are referring to 80 missing Cochrane reviews but it's not clear where this number comes from. Can you mention some of Cochrane reviews you are missing? Regarding the review you mentioned above: the point is that low to moderate-level evidence from a small number of studies with small sample size and a lack of an ideal sham acupuncture is not a basis to claim that "acupuncture improves pain and stiffness in people with fibromyalgia" without further elaboration. Lucleon (talk) 09:50, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
If you go to the Cochrane reviews site and search for acupuncture you will find 122 reviews either specifically about acupuncture only or that mention acupuncture. Yes, I can mention them, see below. Re the fibromyalgia review, you seem to be arguing that a Cochrane review is not good enough to justify its findings. Is this the case? A skeptic who was true to the principles of science wouldn't need to present an abbreviated list as if it were a full list and wouldn't need to summarise the results omitting any mention of positive results. They also wouldn't need to try to discredit scholars based solely on the field in which they study. They wouldn't find it necessary to disparage other by labeling them "true believers' and claiming they weren't "reality based". That looks like an undesirable POV to me. Morgan Leigh | Talk 02:55, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
Close. A scientific POV, which, in Wikipedia articles on science and medicine, is the same thing as the neutral POV. You know the old saying: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The claims of acupuncture are absolutely extraordinary: a 19th Century reworking of bloodletting, based on folk superstitions about life energy originated long before the modern science of anatomy, somehow resulted in a profound method of healing even though all the premises on which it is based are now definitively refuted. The evidence is not in the least bit extraordinary: True Believers conducting endless poorly controlled, poorly blinded studies measuring usually self-reported effects on subjective outcomes, contradicted by much more carefully designed studies by more skeptical researchers. If you believe in the thing and don't try too hard to disprove it, you end up "proving" the thing every time. These tactics kept homeopathy from the scrapheap for half a century, and it's only recently that publicly funded health bodies have started addressing that particular form of health fraud. The trajectory for acupuncture is the same. Guy (Help!) 12:12, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
Once again you are expressing your own opinions and not addressing the specific sources. Morgan Leigh | Talk 02:55, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

MY response was to a specific question about a specific source, not sources as a whole (nor is it a comment on acupuncture+.Slatersteven (talk) 10:43, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

@Alexbrn: That NHS piece is a balanced piece, but instead of citing it why don't we cite the paper it was based on? The paper is Cummings, Hróbjartsson & Ernst, (2018), BMJ 2018; 360 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.k970. It's a recent paper reviewing the evidence that covers both sides of the debate. I note that I am trying to cite three recent meta reviews...Morgan Leigh | Talk 03:12, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

The trouble with that is that it's got stuff from a acupuncture advocate which is bonkers. Although the BMJ can do this kind of "two sides" thing, we are prohibited from doing it by WP:GEVAL policy. We need to make sure that the pseudoscience is kept in its box. Alexbrn (talk) 04:23, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
So the trouble with that paper is that it shows both sides? POV much. We are most certainly not prevented from explaining both side of any given position. By your usage of "bonkers" I am presuming that you feel the source might be biased. WP:BIASED says, "However, reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject.". It is hard to see how a peer reviewed paper that presents both sides of a position is biased though... Moreover WP:GEVAL says "While it is important to account for all significant viewpoints on any topic, Wikipedia policy does not state or imply that every minority view or extraordinary claim needs to be presented along with commonly accepted mainstream scholarship as if they were of equal validity." That acupuncture has some level of effectiveness for some conditions is hardly a minority view nor an extraordinary claim. "The Earth is flat" is a minority view and an extraordinary claim. There is scientific evidence from reliable sources that acupuncture has some degree of efficacy for some conditions. Like the ones I am proposing to cite. Which takes me back to the actual question here, are the aforementioned changes supported by the sources? Are these sources reliable for this text? Morgan Leigh | Talk 05:25, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
It's very fringey to argue that doctors "should" prescribe acupuncture for pain yes, so we're not going to frame that as just one side of "the debate" - it's not a debate being had in the real world. The situation is that whereas acupuncturists have historically made claims that it works for pretty much everything, today they have retreated to the last patch of ground, pain (notoriously difficult to assess via EBM) but even here as the source I mentioned states, the evidence - for a small effect - is weak. So the summary is that acupuncture doesn't work for anything except maybe pain relief, and there isn't even good evidence it works for that. I have already said how this could be sourced. Alexbrn (talk) 05:43, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
Considering that it is a debate going on in the BMJ it is most certainly (a) a debate going on in the real world and (b) not fringey, the BMJ is as unfringey as it gets. I have offered peer reviewed papers that demonstrate some evidence of some effect for acupuncture for some conditions. You have suggested we only cite people with a particular view and that people who don't agree with that view are "bonkers". Science doesn't proceed with the assumption that people with a certain view are bonkers and so we should ignore their research. It tests claims and produces papers. I suggest we approach this as science does, one paper at a time. Starting with accurately representing what the papers already in the article say. Once again I ask, are the aforementioned changes supported by the sources? Are these sources reliable for this text? Morgan Leigh | Talk 08:23, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
Well, if you're going to misrepresent my words there seems no point in continuing this discussion. I have suggested a way forward. Alexbrn (talk) 08:28, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
Exactly how have I misrepresented your words? I sincerely hope I have misunderstood you, but it seems your way forward is to not cite evidence that supports the use of acupuncture. You suggested the NHS article. I suggested citing the paper it is based on and you said you couldn't do that because it contained information from someone who is bonkers. If this is not the case please explain what your way forward is. If its citing the NHS article, ok let's do that. How about we cite this quote from the NHS article "To summarise, evidence outlining the benefits of acupuncture does exist, but it is not strong evidence. There are also concerns the positive effects found in acupuncture research are only small and, arguably, due to a placebo effect.".Morgan Leigh | Talk 08:53, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
@Alexbrn: Re GEVAL: Read GEVAL in the context of WP:NPOV of which it's a part, e.g. the first sentence of UNDUE. To the extent an RS GEVAL's, we GEVAL, when citing that source and according to its weight. Basic NPOV. --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 09:56, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
I'm sure we can spawn all kinds of alternatives to Wikipedia's WP:PAGs by creative invocations of "context"! Unfortunately for the acupuncturists here, GEVAL is explicit: even "plausible" but currently unaccepted theories should not be legitimized through comparison to accepted academic scholarship. So the fringe assertions of an acupuncturist (backed by their equally fringe publications) that acupuncture is in line with science are not going to be used to counterpoint basic scientific reality. This is doubly so when we have rock solid RS informing us that acupucture is pseudoscience. Alexbrn (talk) 10:12, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
Yes, reading WP:NPOV all the way through, what a rad concept. Read right above GEVAL, An article should not give undue weight to minor aspects of its subject, but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight proportional to its treatment in the body of reliable, published material on the subject. BMJ is part of that body of material -- in fact the idea that acu is a powerful tool in pain management turns out to be a very mainstream view. --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 10:39, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
Woomongers read WP:NPOV in much the same way that evangelicals read the Bible: looking for loopholes. Guy (Help!) 15:41, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

"It’s a safe alternative to drugs that is under-researched because it lacks commercial interest, writes Mike Cummings, but Asbjørn Hróbjartsson and Edzard Ernst argue there is no convincing evidence of clinical benefit and that the potential risks and health service costs are unjustified" So I am not sure the paper can be used, as it seems to not be that clear cut. At best if could be used to show that Dr Mike Cummings think s it is medical useful, not that this represents any kind of consensus that it is. As such it could not be used toi show that the wider medical community thinks this is a valid form of medicine As opposed to alternative medicine)Slatersteven (talk) 15:31, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

Yes. "Acupuncture advocate advocates for acupuncture" doesn't really help enlighten our readers. My favourite bit of the article is where Cummings asserts acupuncture is supported by basic science and cites in support – his own book! But again, "acupuncturist asserts acupuncture is scientificially sound" doesn't help our readers either. The whole Cummings side of this paper is not WP:FRINDependent. Alexbrn (talk) 15:40, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
Cummings doesn't cite a book by him in this article. He cites a paper he published in the BMJ. [BMJ 2017. http://www.bmj.com/content/356/bmj.i6748/rr-6 Low back pain and sciatica: summary of NICE guidance] And Hróbjartsson cites himself and so does Ernst. A paper doesn't need to be clear cut to be cited. Such a paper is useful because it shows both side of an issue. I am familiar with the argument that people who study things skeptics don't agree with can't be cited because they are obviously biased. It gets reeled out a lot here lately. It akin to saying you can't cite a neurologist about neurology.
If only there was more evidence that said acupuncture might be effective...
Deare, Zheng etal. (2013) Acupuncture for fibromyalgia "There is low to moderate-level evidence that compared with no treatment and standard therapy, acupuncture improves pain and stiffness in people with fibromyalgia."
Linde, Allais etal (2016) Acupuncture for preventing migraine attacks "The available evidence suggests that a course of acupuncture consisting of at least six treatment sessions can be a valuable option for people with migraine". "The available evidence suggests that adding acupuncture to symptomatic treatment of attacks reduces the frequency of headaches. Contrary to the previous findings, the updated evidence also suggests that there is an effect over sham, but this effect is small."
Vickers, Cronin, Maschino, et al, (2012), Acupuncture for Chronic Pain:Individual Patient Data Meta-analysis, Arch Intern Med. 2012;172(19):1444-1453. doi:10.1001/archinternmed.2012.3654 - "Acupuncture is effective for the treatment of chronic pain and is therefore a reasonable referral option. Significant differences between true and sham acupuncture indicate that acupuncture is more than a placebo."
Hopton, MacPherson, (2010), Acupuncture for Chronic Pain: Is Acupuncture More than an Effective Placebo? A Systematic Review of Pooled Data from Meta‐analyses, Pain Practice, Volume 10, Issue 2, March/April 2010, Pages 94-102 - "...evidence from pooled data from recent meta analyses of acupuncture for chronic pain shows that there is accumulating evidence to support the contention that acupuncture has specific effects beyond the placebo."
Kwon, Pittler, Ernst, (2006), Acupuncture for peripheral joint osteoarthritis: A systematic review and meta-analysis, Rheumatology, Volume 45, Issue 11, 1 November 2006, Pages 1331–1337, https://doi.org/10.1093/rheumatology/kel207 - " "... sham controlled RCTs suggest specific effects of accupuncture for pain control in paitens with peripheral joint OA. Considering its favourable safety profile, acupuncture seems an options worthy of consideration particularily for knee OA".
Furlan, van Tulder et al. (2005) Acupuncture and dry‐needling for low back pain - "For chronic low‐back pain, acupuncture is more effective for pain relief and functional improvement than no treatment or sham treatment immediately after treatment and in the short‐term only"
Shen, Xia et al (2014) Acupuncture for schizophrenia - "Limited evidence suggests that acupuncture may have some antipsychotic effects as measured on global and mental state with few adverse effects."
Armour, Ee et al. (2018) Acupuncture and acupressure for premenstrual syndrome "The limited evidence available suggests that acupuncture and acupressure may improve both physical and psychological symptoms of PMS when compared to a sham control."
Smith, Collins et al. (2011) Acupuncture or acupressure for pain management in labour - "Acupuncture and acupressure may have a role with reducing pain, increasing satisfaction with pain management and reduced use of pharmacological management.
Lee, Chan et al. (2015) Stimulation of the wrist acupuncture point PC6 for preventing postoperative nausea and vomiting "There is low‐quality evidence supporting the use of PC6 acupoint stimulation over sham."
White, Foster et al. (2007) Acupuncture treatment for chronic knee pain: a systematic review - "Acupuncture that meets criteria for adequate treatment is significantly superior to sham acupuncture and to no additional intervention in improving pain and function in patients with chronic knee pain."
Belivani, Dimitroula et al. Acupuncture in the treatment of obesity: a narrative review of the literature "Both experimental and current clinical data suggest that acupuncture (in different forms) exerts beneficial effects on obesity."
I suggest we cite these papers for the quotes provided and ask, are these sources reliable for this text?Morgan Leigh | Talk 02:55, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
Which text? -Roxy, the dog. wooF 06:05, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
@Morgan Leigh: citing neurology to a neurologist is generally fine, but it's not fine citing acupuncutre material to an acupuncturist any more than it is citing astrology explanations to an astrologer, or history to a 9/11 Truther. That's rather the whole point of WP:FRIND. If there really were an accepted scientific basis for acupuncture, it would be easy to find it in stated in independent sources. Alexbrn (talk) 11:20, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
So you assert that acupuncture is WP:FRINGE? Science is about examining the evidence. Suppressing information about whole subject areas because one has decided are dodgy is not science. There is a name for it though. It is a witch hunt. Morgan Leigh | Talk 01:39, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
I am asking for agreement that the sources mentioned are reliable for the quotation following each citation. Should we arrive at some kind of consensus then explicit changes can be made. But if you want an explicit edit to start with then we might consider changing the present text,
"A systematic review found little evidence of acupuncture's effectiveness in treating pain."
which cites this source Ernst E, Lee MS, Choi TY (April 2011). "Acupuncture: does it alleviate pain and are there serious risks? A review of reviews" (PDF). Pain. 152 (4): 755–64. doi:10.1016/j.pain.2010.11.004.
to,
"A 2011 systematic review found little evidence of acupuncture's effectiveness in treating pain (Citing Ernst E, Lee MS, Choi TY (April 2011). "Acupuncture: does it alleviate pain and are there serious risks? A review of reviews" (PDF). Pain. 152 (4): 755–64), while others have found it to be effective. (Citing Vickers, Cronin, Maschino, et al, (2012), Acupuncture for Chronic Pain:Individual Patient Data Meta-analysis, Arch Intern Med. 2012;172(19):1444-1453. doi:10.1001/archinternmed.2012.3654
Hopton, MacPherson, (2010), Acupuncture for Chronic Pain: Is Acupuncture More than an Effective Placebo? A Systematic Review of Pooled Data from Meta‐analyses, Pain Practice, Volume 10, Issue 2, March/April 2010, Pages 94-102
Kwon, Pittler, Ernst, (2006), Acupuncture for peripheral joint osteoarthritis: A systematic review and meta-analysis, Rheumatology, Volume 45, Issue 11, 1 November 2006, Pages 1331–1337) Morgan Leigh | Talk 09:56, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
A lot of old, and some fringe, sources there. The science has moved on. We should really be up-to-date by saying something along the lines of the (recent) piece for the NHS I've linked above. Something like (per the source): acupuncture doesn't work for anything except maybe pain, and even there the evidence of effect isn't good enough to be sure it's useful. That's the current knowledge, saying anything else strikes me as in danger of being WP:PROFRINGE especially since we know acupuncure is a pseudoscience, so per WP:REDFLAG any claim of effectiveness for any condition would require multiple sources of the very hightest quality. Alexbrn (talk) 10:59, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
Opinion. Again. Please address the sources. Which ones do you contend are fringe? The oldest one is 2005. How is this too old? Morgan Leigh | Talk 01:39, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
I have to agree with Alexbrn. And I oppose changing the wording of the article to equivocating. The evidence has been building for years and it is now widely accepted that with all the studies there just isn't any quality evidence that demonstrates any genuine effect. This overly long discussion is not related to the subject header. A new section with a concrete proposal for improving the encyclopedia is called for, or a dropping of the stick. FRIND, PROFINGE, DUE, MEDRS these guidelines and policies have been pointed to and correctly referred to. We really don't need to say they are planning to check past the edge of the flat earth to see if the proof acupuncture is an efficacious and beneficial thing to do to people. MrBill3 (talk) 12:22, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
Opinion. Again. Please address the sources. Can you source your claim that it is "widely accepted"? How do you reconcile this asserting with the numerous peer reviewed sources I have mentioned?Morgan Leigh | Talk 01:39, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
Yup. It doesn't matter where you put the needles, it doesn't matter whether you stick them in or not, the basis of claimed action was refuted over a century ago, there are no objective effects, subjective effects are short-lived and usually clinically irrelevant, and the difficulty of properly blinding makes it impossible to rule out bias and confounding in any of the positive studies. Any drug sold on this basis, and showing evidence of adverse effects, as acupuncture does, would be withdrawn. Guy (Help!) 15:35, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
Opinion. Again. You have expressed this opinion three times now, in almost exactly the same words and each time you have been asked to provided sources that substantiate it and you have offered nothing. Morgan Leigh | Talk 01:39, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
That BMJ link is to a Rapid Response, i.e. a letter. By Mike Cummings. Guy (Help!) 15:35, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
As it says in the paper, that BMJ link is a peer reviewed head to head commissioned by the BMJ and authored by Cummings, Hróbjartsson and Ernst.Morgan Leigh | Talk 01:39, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
Science is not done by panel discussion. Guy (Help!) 11:02, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
Is that your entire rebuttal of the inclusion of this peer reviewed paper, commissioned by and published in the BMJ?Morgan Leigh | Talk 22:04, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
Acupuncture in Medicine (in which PMID 23153472 appears) is not the BMJ. BMJ Group publish many journals, some of them fringe journals we we do not use per WP:FRIND: like Acupuncture in Medicine. Per WP:MEDRS we should generally not be using any source more than 5 years old if newer pertinent material is available. We do not use weak primary sources (e.g. letters even in the real BMJ) for assertions about WP:Biomedical information. All of this is pretty basic. Alexbrn (talk) 08:18, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
The paper to which you refer is "Acupuncture in the treatment of obesity: a narrative review of the literature.". No one has claimed it was in the BMJ. However I do contest your assertion that Acupuncture in Medicine is a fringe journal. Most importantly though we are referring here to "Should doctors recommend acupuncture for pain? BMJ 2018; 360 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.k970 (Published 07 March 2018) BMJ 2018;360:k970".
I note that WP:MEDRS says "Cochrane Library reviews are generally of high quality and are routinely maintained even if their initial publication dates fall outside the 5-year window". The 2005 source is a Cochrane review. WP:MEDRS doesn't say not to use sources older than five years but rather to "try to find those newer sources". I note that more than half the sources in the article are older than five years. One is 1987. Morgan Leigh | Talk 09:05, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
"No one has claimed it was in the BMJ" Really? No one has asked "Is that your entire rebuttal of the inclusion of this peer reviewed paper, commissioned by and published in the BMJ?" --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:32, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
Please read my post above more carefully. The not in the BMJ remark is in relation to Belivani, Dimitroula et al., "Acupuncture in the treatment of obesity: a narrative review of the literature.". The "peer reviewed paper, commissioned by and published in the BMJ?" remark is in relation to Cummings, Hróbjartsson & Ernst, (2018), "Should doctors recommend acupuncture for pain?", BMJ 2018; 360 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.k970.Morgan Leigh | Talk 04:05, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
Sorry, the whole thing was a bit confusing. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:53, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

A proposed edit with recent sources

I agree that the section above has gotten off topic. Here is a discrete proposal for an edit to the article with recent sources that no one has yet actually addressed, except @Middle 8: who described the Vickers paper as "the highest-quality meta-analysis there is ". I'm putting here again because I notice I made a transposition error in when posting it above. It's odd no one noticed that. It's almost as if no one read it...

I suggest we change the present text from;

"A systematic review found little evidence of acupuncture's effectiveness in treating pain."
which cites this source Ernst E, Lee MS, Choi TY (April 2011). "Acupuncture: does it alleviate pain and are there serious risks? A review of reviews" (PDF). Pain. 152 (4): 755–64. doi:10.1016/j.pain.2010.11.004.
to,
"A 2011 systematic review found little evidence of acupuncture's effectiveness in treating pain (Citing Ernst E, Lee MS, Choi TY (April 2011). "Acupuncture: does it alleviate pain and are there serious risks? A review of reviews" (PDF). Pain. 152 (4): 755–64), while others have found it to be effective. (Citing Vickers, Cronin, Maschino, et al, (2012), Acupuncture for Chronic Pain:Individual Patient Data Meta-analysis, Arch Intern Med. 2012;172(19):1444-1453. doi:10.1001/archinternmed.2012.3654
Hopton, MacPherson, (2010), Acupuncture for Chronic Pain: Is Acupuncture More than an Effective Placebo? A Systematic Review of Pooled Data from Meta‐analyses, Pain Practice, Volume 10, Issue 2, March/April 2010, Pages 94-102
Kwon, Pittler, Ernst, (2006), Acupuncture for peripheral joint osteoarthritis: A systematic review and meta-analysis, Rheumatology, Volume 45, Issue 11, 1 November 2006, Pages 1331–1337)Morgan Leigh | Talk 01:39, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
Yes I think so too, but I wasn't going to bandy around labels just because people keep repeating their personal opinions, ofttimes using the exact same words, without addressing the sources. Morgan Leigh | Talk 05:50, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Nope. For the reasons cited above, and multiple times in the past. We don't "balance" pragmatic, reality-based views with the optimistic findings of True Believers. Guy (Help!) 10:45, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
Please confine your remarks to directly addressing the sources at issue @JzG: rather than, once again, expressing your personal opinion and deriding those with a view you don't agree with by labeling them "true believers" and implying they aren't in touch with reality. Morgan Leigh | Talk 21:59, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
Stop sealioning. Guy (Help!) 22:28, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
Instead of making personal attacks please address the sources. Morgan Leigh | Talk 00:13, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
Stop sealioning. Guy (Help!) 00:35, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
Morgan Leigh's objection (repeated because the objectionable behavior is repeated) is reasonable. See 2nd sentence in lede of WP:TPG, and WP:TPNO last bullet point. It's not sealioning to ask an editor to stop that. Nor to point out misunderstandings of WP:WEIGHT. --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 02:34, 11 December 2018 (UTC); add to cmt 03:25, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
Another sealion. Guy (Help!) 22:38, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
@ Guy Re Vickers: WP:WEIGHT doesn't mean discounting MEDRS because some other source criticized it. Most crits of Vickers aren't peer-reviewed anyway and thus aren't very good MEDRS (if they're MEDRS at all) or even very good RS. Hence using them de-weight and discount an IPD meta-analysis is absurd. --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 02:34, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
  • Not really, for a start I doubt this is the only review that has found it ineffective. But I do not agree the other sources can be rejected if they are recognized and qualified medical professionals or professors.Slatersteven (talk) 11:21, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
Indeed there are many. I draw your attention to the 12 citations in the above section, seven of which are Cochrane reviews. Morgan Leigh | Talk 21:59, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
One Cochrane review you cite above is about "Acupuncture for schizophrenia": All results of this review are categorised as 'very low quality' or 'low quality evidence', except for 'time spent in hospital' which was 'moderate level' but that was just 1 RCT. "Very low quality evidence" in GRADE (https://bestpractice.bmj.com/info/us/toolkit/learn-ebm/what-is-grade/) means "The true effect is probably markedly different from the estimated effect"; "low quality evidence" means "The true effect might be markedly different from the estimated effect". In other words, this review provides no support for the clinical application of acupuncture in Schizophrenia.
Another Cochrane review you cite is "Stimulation of the wrist acupuncture point PC6 for preventing postoperative nausea and vomiting". Again, all comparisons between acupuncture and sham were categorised as "low quality evidence".
I did not yet read any of the other reviews you cite above, though it's not very tempting after you posted these two as demonstrating the efficacy of acupuncture.Lucleon (talk) 21:13, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
Low quality evidence is still evidence, it's not no evidence, nor is it evidence that it doesn't work. And I'm totally good with mentioning the quality of any given piece of evidence that in the article. I'm not trying to say that acupuncture is a panacea, because it clearly isn't. What I am saying is, if you have a whole lot of studies with some evidence it is a thing worth investigating further. Not a thing that is "bonkers" and can be put in a box labelled 'pseudoscience, do not ever look inside'. Rather it should be investigated further, and that is why more research has been done and the Vickers paper is one result of that. Do you agree that Vickers is a good quality paper that should be cited?Morgan Leigh | Talk 23:53, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
It is very easy to concoct a low-quality study with low-quality evidence for anything you wish. All you need is money and time; randomness does the rest. Therefore, mentioning such trash in the article would be misleading. Saying that there is low-quality evidence is okay, but one does not have to mention what it is. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:53, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
Low quality evidence means that the results are unreliable. Reported treatment effects based on low quality evidence may be due to statistical fluctuations, bias (e.g. lack of sufficient blinding) etc. instead of the treatment actually working; further explanations in the BMJ article I linked in my previous post. As Hob Gadling said, it's not worth reporting and can be misleading.
Re Vickers et al 2012 (cited above): effect sizes against sham are 0.23 SD, 0.16 SD and 0.15 SD for back and neck pain, osteoarthritis, and chronic headache. Firstly, these effect size are too small to be clinically relevant. In fact, already Madsen, Gøtzsche PC, Hróbjartsson A. (BMJ. 2009 Jan 27;338:a3115. doi: 10.1136/bmj.a3115. Acupuncture treatment for pain: systematic review of randomised clinical trials with acupuncture, placebo acupuncture, and no acupuncture groups. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19174438) found a very similar effect size and concluded "A small analgesic effect of acupuncture was found, which seems to lack clinical relevance and cannot be clearly distinguished from bias". Secondly, the small effect size may well be due to bias. Vickers et al results are based on trials which were not double blinded and in the included GERAC trials even the single blinding is questionable. I therefore do not support the change you suggest.Lucleon (talk) 08:16, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
What Lucleon says. Plus, per WP:MEDRS we shouldn't be using sources older than 5 years old, when we have newer better sources that are relevant (in this case from NICE). Alexbrn (talk) 08:25, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
@Alexbrn: Vickers was updated last year.[2] @Lucleon: Read it; they addressed both blinding and effect size. Blinding: Vickers found essentially the same results, blinded or not. Effect size: still statistically significant, and they concluded more than a placebo and a reasonable referral option -- because efficacy, which is w.r.t. control, isn't the same as effectiveness, which is w.r.t. no treatment (which is what the clinical decision is: whether to treat. Pragmatic trials look at that all the time). As for Madsen's conclusion about bias: of course we cite that (and I think Vickers addressed bias too), but there's this thing called NPOV that explains very clearly how to handle RS when they disagree. Hint: it doesn't mean citing just one side. --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 10:55, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
The effect sizes in Vickers et al 17 are approx. the same as in Vickers et al 12. To demonstrate a specific treatment effect the comparison to sham counts not the comparison to 'no treatment'. This is how other treatments are tested, I don't see why this should be different for acupuncture. Re blinding: in Vickers et al 17 they do exclude some trials with possible bias due to blinding and obtain the same effect size. Still, the remaining trials that were used were not double-blinded. Also, they find that smaller studies had larger effect sizes which can be the result of publication bias.
In light of the small effect sizes, the lack of a plausible mechanism of acupuncture and the overwhelming number of investigations reporting no, tiny or unreliable effect sizes for all kinds of medical conditions, the most parsimonious explanation of these results (Vickers et al.) is that acupuncture has no specific effect and the reported effects are due to biases. To demonstrate the opposite convincingly, much stronger experimental evidence would be needed imho.Lucleon (talk) 11:38, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
@Lucleon: There's no reason to ignore trials without sham controls as long as you're clear what you're looking at. Efficacy measures the comparison to sham, and is what RCT's look at. Effectiveness measures the comparison to no treatment, aka the "real-world effect", and is what PCT's (pragmatic clinical trials) study. A trial can be both if it has both sham and no-treatment arms -- hence Vickers reports both efficacy and effectiveness, and the size of the latter is the basis for his conclusion that acu is a reasonable referral option for chronic pain patients. (A widely-held conclusion given the extent of mainstream acu practice in e.g. academic medical centers -- e.g. 9 out of the top 10 US med schools last I checked)
On your 2nd para: These are reasonable points, and are relevant insofar as they've been stated by some (MED)RS. We cite those alongside Vickers (according to weight). That's how NPOV works. --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 11:44, 16 December 2018 (UTC) | added to comment 12:02, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
The comparison to 'no treatment' doesn't tell us whether the reduction in pain was due to acupuncture or something else, e.g. being take care of by someone, receiving treatment etc.. These latter causes seem quite plausible given that it was the subjective feeling of pain which was investigated and only small improvements were observed.Lucleon (talk) 13:55, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
Indeed. Acupuncturists have invested much in building up the mythology of their craft, the average person almost certainly believes it works and it is very hard to blind both study participants and practitioners to whether real or fake acupuncture is being used. And when you do that convincingly, and show no difference, the acupuncturists claim that acupuncture is so powerful that even fake acupuncture works. Which is one hell of a get out of jail free card. Guy (Help!) 20:00, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
@ Guy I replied on your talk page because of what it says at the top of the page about discussing edits not the general topic (WP:TALKNO lat bullet point) --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 22:48, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
@ User:Lucleon Right. Hence what I just said about the difference between an RCT and a PCT. And that acu is used in the real world anyway. Why? Because a lot of doctors find it gives their patients additional relief, and they care about that more than the placebo issue (read Jytdog's comment here) --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 22:48, 17 December 2018 (UTC) | edit: ping removed, discussion moved to user talk fwiw 23:00, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
There is a reason why quacks love PCTs. Homeopathists, especially. PCTs maximise the possibility of claiming regression to the mean, natural course of disease, expectation bias and observer bias, as treatment effects. They are possibly legitimate for comparing known valid therapies, but where the claims of a therapy are outlandish, as they are with acupuncture, they are not appropriate. To quote Ernst: "In some medical areas, for example complementary medicine, pragmatic trials tend to be conducted by practitioners or others with a strong interest in promoting their therapy. In such instances, the weak design and scope for ‘‘spin’’ in interpreting results render pragmatic trials highly susceptible to bias." Note also that "analysis of shams in migraine clearly indicate that sham acupuncture and sham surgery significantly outperform all other shams and placebos"[3] - an invasive fake treatment is more likely to trigger the cognitive biases that generate self-reported benefits than a non-invasive one. The fact that fake acupuncture has pretty much the same effect size as the real thing is a very big red flag, and would be very worrying for the needlers if they were not so blinded by belief that they actually claim this as validation. Guy (Help!) 08:18, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
In your opinion, as someone whose livelihood depends on acupuncture being portrayed as valid. Guy (Help!) 09:30, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
It speaks well of Middle 8 that they have stated that they are an acupuncturist up front. And we have been down this road before, with IIRC a 2:1 weighting against experts having a COI in their subject area. If every MD couldn't write about medicine, if every lawyer couldn't write about the law, if every acupuncturist couldn't write about acupuncture we would soon be getting bombarded with information from whichever ignorant individual 1 who could shout fake news the loudest. Oh, wait... Morgan Leigh | Talk 23:53, 11 December 2018 (UTC)
MDs can change the medicine they presribe; for acupuncturists the answer must always be Moar Acupunture. So it is with homeopath writing about homeopathy, Scientologists writing about Hubbard and so on. Policy is clear for fringe topics like acu (a pseudoscience) WP:FRIND applies. BTW, Ernst is very good on this topic.[4] Alexbrn (talk) 07:31, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
You seem to be suggesting that there is no acupuncturist who is an MD and vice versa. This is absolutely not the case. The BMA has recommend for several years that information on acupuncture and its possible benefits should be included in both undergraduate and postgraduate medical education (See British Medical Association Board of Science and Education. Acupuncture: Efficacy, Safety and Practice. London: Harwood Academic, 2000, p96) and there are a growing number of MDs who are also trained acupuncturists. MDs can change the treatments they prescribe, and they sometimes prescribe acupuncture, and vice versa. Morgan Leigh | Talk 08:23, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
Nice straw man. My point was that fringe adherents are not reliable sources of information about their pet fringe topic. Here we have WP:FRIND, so we're not - per our WP:PAGs - going to be using acupuncturists on acupuncture any more than we're going to be using 9/11 truthers on what happened to the World Trade Center. Alexbrn (talk) 08:31, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
This. It's remarkable how often the "good" positive studies turn out to hae the same authors. Many, such as Witt, Lewith and so on, also appear on articles spruiking homeopathy and other quack cures. Guy (Help!) 11:01, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
this is a time sink. Obviously authors who advocate fringe aren’t RS for fringe. The article already duly notes acupuncture’s role in pain relief and palatative care and recommendations pertaining to these. It is also duly comprised in large part of the tectonic slabs of writings from medrs, which say it is a bag of toss. There’s simply nothing more to be done here. This isn’t a conversation about article improvement. ～～～～ Edaham (talk) 13:09, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
It's remarkable how studies who don't find evidence tend to be by the same authors. Ernst is cited 37 times in the article! Isn't Ernst the guy about who the editor of The Lancet wrote "Professor Ernst seems to have broken every professional code of scientific behaviour by disclosing correspondence referring to a document that is in the process of being reviewed and revised prior to publication. This breach of confidence is to be deplored." (The Times, Monday 29 August 2005)? Didn't he get 'early retired' out of his academic position because of this misconduct? Wasn't the journal of which he was editor in chief discontinued? Morgan Leigh | Talk 23:15, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
Both time sink and red herring par excellence, because not a single one of the preceding comments under my !vote pertains to Vickers' IPD meta-analysis. (Note, meta-analysis, not opinion piece.) --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 17:43, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
We did address that, actually. As stated: we're not including Vickers to "balance" the reality-based consensus that acupuncture is bollocks, regardless of the effect on your income. Sorry.
More detailed reasons not to include have been given previously, including the fact that several of the authors are well known woomongers, and many of the reviewed papers were written by the reviewers themselves, and as Ernst said of this study, "[t]he differences between the results obtained with real and sham acupuncture are small and not clinically relevant. Crucially, they are probably due to residual bias in these studies. Several investigations have shown that the verbal or non-verbal communication between the patient and the therapist is more important than the actual needling. If such factors would be accounted for, the effect of acupuncture on chronic pain might disappear completely." Guy (Help!) 19:33, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
So you contend that an IPD study is not reality based? That's odd because Cochrane Methods says they are of a higher standard than other reviews because they go back and examine the original data rather examining summaries. For this reason Vickers seems a better choice to cite than Madsen, Gøtzsche PC, Hróbjartsson A. (BMJ. 2009 Jan 27;338:a3115. doi: 10.1136/bmj.a3115. Acupuncture treatment for pain: systematic review of randomised clinical trials with acupuncture, placebo acupuncture, and no acupuncture groups. Moreover because Vickers was been updated this year and Madsen, Gøtzsche PC, Hróbjartsson A. is a 2009 paper it seems better to cite Vickers. I wonder why it is then that one of these papers is in the article while the other is omitted? Can you please name which specific papers are the subjects of your claim that reviewers have reviewed papers they have authored? Can you provide evidence of this? Can you cite a source that these authors are "woomongers"? Morgan Leigh | Talk 23:15, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
Any study that proceeds from the premise that health can be influenced by manipulating the flow of qi through meridians is not reality-based. Any meta-analysis that does not exclude such studies automatically, on the grounds of transparent bias, is not reality-based. The criticisms of the Vickers paper by Ernst are compelling. It is, in short, an uncritical piece of work by authors who are generally True believers, and this is represented in the florid and unsupportable language of their conclusions, where a weak effect barely differentiated from sham is represented as compelling slam dunk proof that everybody should be promoting acupuncture. Guy (Help!) 23:24, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
Every sentence in your reply, except the third, is your opinion and thus irrelevant. Given that the Vickers paper has been updated since Ernst's criticisms and that Vickers addressed the comments by Ernst i.e. Vickers found basically the same results regardless of blinding and that the effect size was still statistically significant, why shouldn't we be able to cite Vickers to, at the very least, show that they have addressed those concerns by Ernst? Morgan Leigh | Talk 04:46, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
Nope, there is a broad consensus that qi has not been shown to exist, it's not just his opinion, but objectively true. So WP:REDFLAG. Tgeorgescu (talk) 04:53, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
@Morgan Leigh: WP:REDFLAG. In order to say that a pseudoscience like acupuncture is effective for any condition, we would need multiple high-quality sources. Alexbrn (talk) 05:17, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
Tgeorgescu: Straw man. No one is arguing Qi exists. Also you are not addressing the source in question. Alexbrn: You are not addressing the source in question. Science is a method, not a list of things that are right and things that are wrong. The scientific study of any phenomena is not pseudoscience. Pseudoscience is bad science. Science not done right. If the method is followed it is ipso facto science, no matter what it is studying. Seeing Vickers is an IPD meta study I think that's pretty good evidence that it's using the scientific method and thus science and not pseudoscience. So let's cite it. And redflag right back at you. To say an IPD review is pseudoscience is an exceptional claim and you need multiple high quality sources. If you want to put a whole bunch of stuff into a box labelled pseudoscience, even though it is being studied using the scientific method, then you are not doing science. You are doing pseudoskepticism. Let's be sciencey. Let's cite sources that use the scientific method. Let's cite Vickers. Morgan Leigh | Talk 10:14, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
When you say "no one is arguing Qi exists", you are being disingenuous, since that is absolutely the view of many of the authors of papers under question here, and is also clearly implicit in the name of the acupuncture meridian science center. Moreover, in the absence of qi, there is no credible alternative hypothesis for the mechanism by which acupuncture "works". We're back in the homeopathy world of circular reasoning - we believe X, we set out to prove X and satisified our belief in X, therefore we must explain X in terms consistent with our belief in X - when in fact the most parsimonious explanation is not-X. We already know that it doesn't matter where you put the needles, or if you insert them or not, we know that effects are visible only in subjective outcomes, are generally restricted to self-reported results, effect size is small and not clinically relevant, and the more rigorously blinded and controlled a study is the less likely it is to show a positive outcome. In other words, it's bollocks.
The only really compelling point in Vickers is the negligible difference between real and sham acupuncture. Sham acupuncture is hard to do and the blinding is plausibly broken without much effort (e.g. from the persistence of bruising, which can last weeks when needles are inserted), and yet the difference between real and fake acupuncture is clinically irrelevant. And we can#t use Vickers as a source for this important fact because they misrepresent this outcome as validation - as do several other True Believer sources, in fact, leading to absurdities like this NYT piece. Hint: if sham treatment and real treatment work as well as each other, you have proved that (a) neither works and (b) your experimental design failed to control for bias and confounding. Guy (Help!) 11:26, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
I reject your claim that I am being disingenuous on the grounds that we are not discussing the subject area, for that is not what we are here to do. We are discussing whether or not a source is a good source to include. Moreover the question of whether Qi exists is not germane to this source. It is not what the paper is about. The paper is about whether or not a measurable result was found when following a given procedure. It does not mention Qi, nor does it discuss theories about potential causative mechanisms.
Once again you are offering your opinion that this source is unreliable because it is by alleged "true believers". You are offering an ad hominum attack in order to suggest that a high quality IPD review is unfit to include. Moreover you make an unsubstantiated claim and accuse reputable scientists of misrepresentation because they don't agree with your opinion. You prefer your opinion about blinding to the outcome of a peer reviewed, high quality meta review. Even the NYT is an absurdity, according to you. All in all you are really grasping at straws. You say that Vickers makes a compelling point, shall we cite it for this point? Morgan Leigh | Talk 06:17, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
@JzG and Tgeorgescu: Vickers and coauthors don't argue qi exists. Not in the paper. Which is all that matters when evaluating it as a source. --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 12:19, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
Again, per WP:FRINGE and WP:REDFLAG we're biased against Vickers's position. Wikipedia has an extraordinarily high standard for evidence which would allow us to say that acupuncture is really effective. Tgeorgescu (talk) 06:32, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
@Tgeorgescu: No -- that reflects a misreading of Vickers. His results showing small advantage over sham are consistent w/ other reviews (naturally, since he's looking at the same trials). OTOH, his conclusion that acu is a reasonable referral option is based on the larger advantage over no-treatment (which is how clinical decisions are often made). --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 12:24, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
The problem is that Vickers makes grandiose claims such as "significant differences between true and sham acupuncture indicate that acupuncture is more than a placebo", but the differences are not clinically relevant and are merely an indication that the more closely a control mimics acupuncture, the less difference there is between acupuncture and the control - which means that acupuncture doesn't work. The "acupuncture triallists' collaboration" set out to validate their pre-existing beliefs and, as SCAM studies generally do, succeeded in finding some clinically irrelevant results that they could then spin as validation. This is normal and expected, homeopathists have done the same thing for years, so we don't give it undue weight by citing its tendentious conclusions. Guy (Help!) 09:33, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
@Guy If Vickers said the difference from sham was clinically significant, he was wrong (as balancing MEDRS will say) -- but I know he said it was statistically significant, which simply a finding from the data, and not a grandiose claim. He also said that the difference from no-treatment was clinically significant, and on that he was correct. Hence its use in mainstream settings and good MEDRS that suggest so doing. --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 22:19, 17 December 2018 (UTC) | add to cmt Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 22:32, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
The difference from no treatment is irrelevant, since the aim in any study must be to separate treatment from bias, and in no-treatment controls there is absolutely no hope of adequate blinding of either subject or experimenter. That is why so much effort has been put into developing a truly convincing sham acupuncture control. What Vickers' results show is that sham acupuncture controls are, by now, nearly good enough. As a true believer of course Vickers cannot bring himself to admit this - if indeed the cognitive dissonance even allows him to see it. There is no getting away from the fact that the actual result of Vickers is that the difference between real and fake acupuncture is clinically irrelevant. And in anyone other than a true believer, that is understood to mean that it doesn't work. Guy (Help!) 23:47, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

You have been making it clearer and clearer that you don't like our NPOV policy, Til. That's your prerogative, but until you get it changed it isn't your prerogative to try and change it article by article. Dougweller (talk) 22:02, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Quoted by Tgeorgescu (talk) 06:39, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
Do you contend that an IPD meta review is not a high standard review? Morgan Leigh | Talk 09:54, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
A good method carried out by bad actors doesn't make a good source. We've pointed out the problems multiple times, your unwillingness to accept them is not really our problem by now. Guy (Help!) 14:15, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
Yes, and it has been pointed out to you many times that your opinion that anyone who doesn't agree with you is bad is irrelevant. However your unwillingness to accept this is our problem. Do us a favour and read the talk page guidelines again please. You are asserting that reputable academics are "bad actors"? Sounds awfully like an ad hominem to me... And yet, you support the inclusion of Ernst, an academic who broke "every professional code of scientific behaviour", not my opinion here's a source, again (The Times, Monday 29 August 2005) because you agree with him. So it's not about "bad actors" really is it? It's about who you agree with. Morgan Leigh | Talk 00:33, 15 December 2018 (UTC)
Then I advise you that you should complain at WP:AE. Mind of WP:BOOMERANG. But to come back at what you said, scientific truth and ethics are quite different matters. One can be a law-abiding citizen who lies like a dog, or a university president who pled guilty to making obscene, child-sex related phone calls to a daycare center. Tgeorgescu (talk) 01:09, 15 December 2018 (UTC)
I notice you are not answering the question that is relevant to the source under discussion... Do you contend that an IPD meta review is not a high standard review?— Preceding unsigned comment added by Morgan Leigh (talk • contribs)
Sooner or later this will go to WP:AE since both parties have made their points clear and cannot reach WP:CONSENSUS. Tgeorgescu (talk) 07:56, 15 December 2018 (UTC)
Still avoiding the question... It's a pretty simple question really. I wonder why you don't want to answer? One reason we can't get consensus is continued avoidance of answering direct questions about sources. Morgan Leigh | Talk 23:13, 15 December 2018 (UTC)
Actually we have consensus, but a tiny handful of acupuncture advocates and practitioners dislike it. They also dislike the removal of acupuncture from treatment guidelines. Not our problem. Guy (Help!) 09:51, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
@Morgan Leigh: I think that you should stop repeating the question after it has received an answer. Tgeorgescu (talk) 11:30, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
Agree w/ Tgeorgescu (re AE) --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 11:52, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
@Tgeorgescu: See past discussions. Basically the acupuncture fans have been trying to crowbar this into the article for years. Guy (Help!) 00:32, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
  • I saw an exchange on Guy's talk page that made me curious about this whole dust-up. It's been an interesting read and I thought a pair of fresh eyes might help. I try to stay out of contentious topics like this, because no matter what I say I'll probably get shouted at by someone unhappy, but I must be a glutton for punishment today.
I looked through the article and the sources, and found them all interesting if rather difficult to comprehend as someone who knows next to nothing about this stuff. To be fair, in my earlier years I poked my fair share of things with needles, mostly myself when I was bored, and I also pretended to poke things with needles, mostly my sister, but none of that's ever been published and she was never quite enthused. I searched the source in question, Vickers, on Google scholar and looked through some of the articles which cite it and how they cover it to get an idea of how we should cover it.
I found this article from 2014 cited about 450 times. Interesting read, about treatment recommendations and algorithms which combines two things I don't know much about so also very interesting. It seems to view the source in question as corroborating the wording as it already is, saying: "...other studies suggest that the benefit of acupuncture is small, especially compared with sham acupuncture [cites vickers], and possibly due to expectation or placebo effect." I'm still rather curious how one would pretend to stick a needle in someone in a clinically controlled manner. Interesting concept since I for one think I would notice whether or not a needle was stuck into me.
I also found an interesting 2013 article which looks at efficacy of treatments for cancer patients. Took me a while to figure out what "ROB" means (turns out it's "risk of bias" which sounds ominous). It had an interesting summary of work at the time, saying "Of the 11 trials examining acupuncture for pain, nine were positive, but eight had high ROB [risk of bias]." Not really sure how to interpret that, but given the ominous nature of ROB, I'm not bullish. It goes on to characterize the source in question saying: "Other reviews and meta-analyses have been published suggesting the utility of acupuncture for pain control in noncancer populations, [cites Vickers] but studies with low ROB [Risk of Bias] are needed to definitively assess its efficacy for pain management in patients with cancer." In my reading it seems to be saying that the source in question doesn't provide substantial evidence for efficacy, or at least not enough to use it on cancer patients. I don't hang with medical crowds much, but if I remember my IRB training well enough I assumed that experimental treatments on cancer patients were more accepted as the potential benefits of an unproven therapy tended to far outweigh the costs. That they didn't find enough evidence to support its use in cancer populations then also tends to make me a little suspicious of this wording.
All of this is to say I'm not in favor of the proposed change as it seems to be going against the characterization I'm seeing in the literature. Our article doesn't say it's not effective or that there's no evidence at all, it says there's "little" evidence. Which all the sources, including Vickers itself, seem to also be saying. I want to quote something I found while going through the archives of this discussion said almost 4 years ago:

Ernst, Vickers, and Novella, certainly do agree that the bulk of acupuncture's effect is due to the placebo effect. Vicker's "Although the data indicate that acupuncture is more than a placebo, the differences between true and sham acupuncture are relatively modest, suggesting that factors in addition to the specific effects of needling are important contributors to therapeutic effects" and Novella's "the benefits of acupuncture are likely nonexistent, or at best are too small and too transient to be of any clinical significance" are in substantial alignment, differing primarily in the value judgement of whether a trivial impact is worth paying for, not in whether the impact is trivial. Ernst's conclusions aren't much different. What widely noted review has claimed an effect for acupuncture that was large compared to the effect for placebo?
— User:KWW January 2015

As for the rest of this discussion, I'll refrain from guessing at motives here, there seems to be enough of that already. Assuming no one here is biased, this whole thing seems to be a mountain out of a mole hill (I couldn't think of an acupuncture pun on that, and didn't think it was worth taking a stab at). The sources say there's little evidence, the article says there's little evidence, and Wikipedia shouldn't be responsible for being the reason someone decides that getting poked with needles will make them hurt less. Perhaps it's best if we just back away from this dead horse. Ping me if you need anything. Wugapodes [thɑk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɹɪbz] 04:03, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
I agree, though AGF can't obscure the fact that Middle8 has declared a financial interest in acupuncture.
The problem for me is that Vickers' conclusion is ass-backwards. The effects of needling are nonspecific. They are small, transient, and only affect subjective outcomes. The near-parity between real and fake acupuncture actually reveals two things: first, that acupuncture has a well known mythology around it, second, that it's hard to blind people and practitioners as to whether you are actually sticking needles in. Acupuncture fans love Vickers because it spreads the gospel. They have been trying to crowbar Vickers into this article for five years. But the reality-based interpretation of Vickers' findings is so far out of line with what the conclusions state, that it's unacceptable to include it here. What Vickers found is that real and fake acupuncture are almost indistinguishable, the difference is clearly clinically irrelevant, and the most parsimonious explanation for the residual difference is that sham acupuncture is hard to do really convincingly. The placebo effect is not a thing. It is a set of biases, not an actual effect. The co-authors include Lewith, Witt and Linde, all of whom have produced equally underwhelming studies in support of homeopathy, the quintessential fake treatment. Vickers' words here absolutely reveal the motivations behind the study. What they want is for patients to be referred to acupuncturists. Their main focus is the VA but they want it everywhere. It's almost as transparent as chiropractic practice-building.
His statement that "[t]reatment effects of acupuncture persist over time and cannot be explained solely in terms of placebo effects" is tendentious. Sham acupuncture studies - the only ones that reliably test against placebo - do not support long-term effects, are fully consistent with bias and nonspecific effects, and the placebo effect is not a thing, despite the years of efforts of acupuncturists like Ted Kaptchuk to prove it is. It's a classic SCAM marketing study, and the 2017 comment makes that absolutely explicit. Acupuncturists seem to be following homeopathists down the path of claiming to harness the nonexistent placebo effect in a unique way. Guy (Help!) 08:05, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Cochrane Collaboration Studies - sources feature prominently in Independent article questioning practices

Stumbled upon this article about Cochrane Collaboration studies (the sources cited in this article that suggest acupuncture is a psuedoscience). This Independent article from Sept. 2018 centers on the institute and it's practices, specifically a co-founder who's been expelled from the board by his colleagues. The questionable practices that led to his expulsion seem to have some bearing on the way said studies were conducted. From the article "Greenhalgh, a leading research methodologist, has criticised the Cochrane 'hierarchy of evidence', which places experimental trials above any other study design, and affords limited value to qualitative research. She urges a more inclusive approach to evidence-based practice: 'Facts are not self-interpreting; they are theory and value-laden.' " — Preceding unsigned comment added by Omgnora (talk • contribs) 18:44, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

That is just a weak attempt at Poisoning the well. Internal differences of opinion do not invalidate the status of the Cochrane Collaboration as a reliable source. To do that, much worse things are needed. --Hob Gadling (talk) 18:48, 28 December 2018 (UTC)
@Omgnora and Hob Gadling: Apart from Hob's unwarranted casting of aspersions on your intentions in mentioning this entirely pertinent information, I do agree with them that the present perturbations internal to the Cochrane review process are not sufficient for us to cast aside all Cochrane reviews. You might consider adding this information to the Cochrane (organisation) page as it would be entirely relevant there. Morgan Leigh | Talk 00:38, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

Removal of a 2017 review

I recently added this 2017 review article to the section on Effectiveness (specifically the subsection thereof "Pain"). But this edit was soon reverted by MPants at work, apparently because it is too recent to have made a significant impact, and is "a little fishy, to boot". MPants further cited WP:DUE to justify his removal of this article. [5] However, there appears to be no reason to believe that the conclusions of this review article, positive though they may be regarding acupuncture, are "fringe" views that thus need to be minimized. It appears that this source, far from being the sort of fringe publication that should be excluded by WP:DUE, is the sort of recently-published review article in a reputable peer-reviewed journal (Current Opinion in Anesthesiology) that we should be trying to include per WP:MEDRS. But if MPants or anyone else wishes to explain why this sources is "fishy" or should be excluded for another reason I'm all ears. IntoThinAir (formerly Everymorning) talk 00:14, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Just as a point of fact, by definition, sources that support the efficacy of acupuncture have fringe conclusions. That doesn't make them invalid, but the mainstream view is that acupuncture is not effective, hence the conclusions of this study are fringe. However, that's not so much the problem in this case, per se. The WP:DUE reason here is that there's nothing about this study that makes it at all clear why it was picked. It's just one, random study by a couple of unremarkable researchers claiming to show that acupuncture is effective, tacked on to the end of a paragraph about the effectiveness of accupuncture that, for the most part, clearly disagrees with the results of this study. (That's leaving out the use of language like "growing evidence".) As for the date: It's a 2017 review. It hasn't had a chance to establish an impact in the field. It's just one of the things that make this study unremarkable. We generally prefer studies and surveys that have been around a few years and gathered up a bunch of citations; preferably those which have had their results duplicated.
Finally the fishiness: the review starts by exclaiming that acupuncture is effective. It then "finds" that acupuncture is effective. <sound of crickets chirping> That's not just a red flag, that's a guy in a red suit with a red face from drinking frantically waving a red flag soaked in his own urine while blathering about aliens and anal probes. Good science never sets out to answer a question by stating that one answer is true in unambiguous terms. Of course, this is actually par for the course with acupuncture research.
Then there's the usual "Multiple Asian authors and one Westerner", with the Asian contributors clearly the actual authors (Author information says: Acupuncture Meridian Science Research Center, College of Korean Medicine, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Republic of Korea, yet Buchheit is with The Pain Society of the Carolinas) used to make acupuncture research look more legitimate by making it look less Asian. Then, it's published in a relatively low-impact journal (there's another journal by the same publisher, covering the same field with twice the impact factor). Like I said, it's just fishy. It might turn out to be okay, but I highly doubt that any credible researchers would give this study the time of day. Of course, in a few years, we might see that I was wrong, when this article has hundreds of cites and is referenced as establishing the scientific consen- Oh, wait. I just saw how it concludes. Further studies on its use as an adjunct or alternative to opioids, and in perioperative settings are needed. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 02:59, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
Do you have a reliable source to support your clearly extraordinary claim that "the mainstream view is that acupuncture is not effective"? Without such a source any claim that "by definition, sources that support the efficacy of acupuncture have fringe conclusions" is clearly untenable. Dismissing the article as being by "unremarkable researchers" is of course an ad hominem that has no bearing on whether or to what extent the conclusions of the article are valid. Notably, you failed to address the point I made regarding the fact that WP:MEDRS (specifically the section WP:MEDDATE) recommends that recent literature reviews be included, meaning the complaint about this article not having had enough time to get a lot of citations is invalid: that it was published recently is a strength, not a weakness. In addition, their statement that more research is needed appears to be with reference not to acupuncture's effectiveness in general, or with respect to chronic pain, but rather with respect to its use "an adjunct or alternative to opioids, and in perioperative settings" (as shown in the quote you yourself cited above). That two of the three authors are of Asian descent seems of little to no relevance to the credibility of the article's conclusions--I am aware of the issue of almost all Chinese studies producing positive results, but none of the authors have any affiliations in China. So I am, in general, skeptical of the argument that this should be excluded. IntoThinAir (formerly Everymorning) talk 03:31, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
The new review discusses five new human trials (most of the papers reviewed are animal trials, or publications that are not clinical trials). And one of those trials only had 8 people and no control group. And the only of the five with more than 100 subjects wasn't even designed to test efficacy. It contributes literally nothing to the body of knowledge on acupuncture effectiveness, except to point out that people continue to publish studies from which no conclusions can be drawn. Someguy1221 (talk) 03:43, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
Do you have a reliable source to support your clearly extraordinary claim that "the mainstream view is that acupuncture is not effective"? Ahh, so you were POV pushing with that addition. That explains it. But to answer your question:
  • Myint Swe Khine (2011) Advances in Nature of Science Research: Concepts and Methodologies Springer Science & Business Media, New York, NY
  • Baran G.R., Kiani M.F., Samuel S.P. (2014) Science, Pseudoscience, and Not Science: How Do They Differ?. In: Healthcare and Biomedical Technology in the 21st Century. Springer, New York, NY
  • Barrett, Stephen M.D. Be Wary of Acupuncture, Qigong, and "Chinese Medicine" http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/acu.html (this one has it's own list of references worth checking out)
  • Brian M. Berman, M.D., Helene M. Langevin, M.D., Claudia M. Witt, M.D., M.B.A., and Ronald Dubner, D.D.S., Ph.D. (2010) Acupuncture for Chronic Low Back Pain New England Journal of Medicine 2010; Volume 363, pages 454-461
  • Andrew C. Ahn, Agatha P. Colbert, Belinda J. Anderson, Ørjan G. Martinsen, Richard Hammerschlag, Steve Cina, Peter M. Wayne, Helene M. Langevin (2008) Electrical properties of acupuncture points and meridians: A systematic review Bioelectromagnetics Volume 29, Issue 4
  • Christopher J. Standaert; Janna Friedly; Mark W. Erwin; Michael J. Lee; Glenn Rechtine; Nora B. Henrikson; Daniel C. Norvell (2011) Comparative Effectiveness of Exercise, Acupuncture, and Spinal Manipulation for Low Back Pain Spine, Volume 36, Pages 120-130
  • E. Ernst (2005) Acupuncture – a critical analysis Journal of Internal Medicine Volume 259, Pages 125-137
  • Shu-Ming Wang, Zeev N. Kain, Paul F. White (2008) Acupuncture Analgesia: II. Clinical Considerations Anesthesia & Analgesia, Volume 106(2) Pages 611-621
  • Ernst, E.; Lee, Myeong Sooa; Choi, Tae-Youngb (2011) Acupuncture: Does it alleviate pain and are there serious risks? A review of reviews Pain, Volume 152(4), Pages 755-764
  • Ernst, Edzard (2009) Acupuncture: What Does the Most Reliable Evidence Tell Us? Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, Volume 37(4), Pages 709-714
There's plenty more where that came from.
Dismissing the article as being by "unremarkable researchers" is of course an ad hominem that has no bearing on whether or to what extent the conclusions of the article are valid. Cherry picking, are we now? Don't pretend to call out "fallacies" in another editors argument if you can't be bothered to maintain a higher level of integrity, yourself. Either quote me in context or don't quote me at all, thanks.
Notably, you failed to address the point I made regarding the fact that WP:MEDRS (specifically the section WP:MEDDATE) recommends that recent literature reviews be included I thought you had already read WP:RECENTISM, which is explicitly warned against in WP:MEDRS. If I was mistaken in that assumption, I apologize. So let me address your concern now: WP:RECENTISM.
In addition, their statement that more research is needed Using a higher level of specificity only transforms a vague and meaningless statement into a less vague but still meaningless statement.
I am aware of the issue of almost all Chinese studies producing positive results, but none of the authors have any affiliations in China. Then you should be aware that this tends to apply to Korean studies to a somewhat lesser extent, and to studies from institutes dedicated to promoting acupuncture to a much higher extent. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 12:53, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
MPants at work, I'm curious to know where you heard this about Korean studies. Do you have a link to this information? TylerDurden8823 (talk) 08:31, 6 August 2018 (UTC)
@TylerDurden8823: I've seen comparisons between Chinese and Korean science wrt acupuncture in numerous places. Off the top of my head, this is one example that actually goes into some detail about what the specific problems with Korean studies are. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 12:31, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
@MPants at work:, I don't see anything about the state of the medical literature from Korea in the cited article. Are you sure you cited the correct study? It looks like it's an older article examining the state of Korean literature specifically about acupuncture. Granted, it looks like it's mainly lower level evidence (e.g., case reports, series, uncontrolled/suboptimally controlled studies, etc, which still have some value (case reports can be a helpful type of evidence)) but it doesn't necessarily speak to the original question of whether medical literature from Korea suffers from similar questions about its overall integrity when compared to that of China. TylerDurden8823 (talk) 08:02, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
It's a paper that weighs the results and analyses the methodology of literally every acupuncture study published in all Korean journals, and found the facts that they almost always show a positive result and they are virtually always of low methodological quality notable enough to mention in the abstract (not even saving it for the results). I don't see how that's at all ambiguous. Sure, an analysis of the overall state of Korean literature might not have been the stated goal of the authors, but that doesn't really matter when such an analysis was a part of their methodology, now does it? ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 01:26, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
Well, I think it matters. I wouldn't necessarily extrapolate the poor quality of the Korean literature in the field of acupuncture to Korean literature in all other medical subjects. The article you provided certainly speaks volumes about the quality of the Korean literature on acupuncture. I'm not suggesting it's ambiguous about that. TylerDurden8823 (talk) 07:19, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
I was only referring to the qualities of Korean medical science wrt acupuncture. I have no particular problem with, for example, a Korean new drug study. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 12:29, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
(belated, but FWIW) MPants' comment above that WP:RECENTISM precludes the use of recent literature reviews is fundamentally wrong. WP:MEDRS applies, not RECENTISM: the latter says not to give undue weight to breaking news. It doesn't say "don't use up-to-date science". Just saying. --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 09:49, 30 December 2018 (UTC)
New scientific publications that have not had a chance to be commented on or replicated by other scientists are not "up-to-date science". You seem to have no idea how science achieves its results and how it avoids coming to wrong conclusions. --Hob Gadling (talk) 10:32, 30 December 2018 (UTC)
@Hob Gadling: The pertinent phrase = "recent literature reviews." Sec sources not primary ones. (see WP:MEDDATE) --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 11:34, 30 December 2018 (UTC)
Secondary sources are not magically immune to mistakes. --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:57, 30 December 2018 (UTC)
Come on Hob, you cannot expect a True Believer to understand Science. -Roxy, the dog. wooF 12:21, 30 December 2018 (UTC)
@Hob Gadling: MEDDATE >> RECENTISM for sci reviews (in fact, applying RECENTISM is so far afield it's "not even wrong"). Ask at WT:MED if in doubt about this. --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 12:55, 30 December 2018 (UTC)
Please stop pinging me. I have a watchlist.
It is not my job to do and ask people. I do not want to put stuff in the article. And there are enough medicine experts here already. --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:03, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

We should evaluate sources based on their quality not their conclusions. Re mainstream: NICE guidelines recommend acupuncture for chronic tension-type headaches and migraines [6]. Harrison's (2015 pdf) recommends it for several conditions including dysmennorhea, knee OA and chronic flank, back, or abdominal pain due to renal enlargement in ADPKD. NICE and Harrison's are as mainstream as it gets last I checked. --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 09:03, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

To be clear i do get that for most other conditions there's "evidence of no efficacy" or "no evidence of efficacy", and caveats re possible false positives, etc etc. --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 02:52, 3 December 2018 (UTC) (revised 11:26, 3 December 2018 (UTC))
And if you look at the history of NICE guidance on acupuncture, the recommendations are being crossed off one by one. Example: https://www.nice.org.uk/news/article/nice-publishes-updated-advice-on-treating-low-back-pain Guy (Help!) 13:13, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
Yep. Unlike the acupuncturists themselves, at least NICE is slowly recognizing and resolving its green-jelly-bean problem. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:28, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
@JzG: Yes, that is the overall trend for the evidence base. Wikipedia not being a crystal ball, how would you handle what NICE and Harrison's say now, as opposed to what they'll probably say in the future? --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 10:21, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
We ignore it, because there is good reason to think that sources like this are merely behind the trajectory. They are the equivalent of the few sources that continued to publish Heartland-funded industry driven climate change denialism after the publication of Merchants of Doubt. Quackademic medicine is a large and well funded enterprise, but the ability of acupuncture to manipulate nonexistent qi along nonexistent meridians, cherished though it is by the integrative medicine cargo cult, is no longer a matter of serious scientific inquiry, only of marketing studies by true believers. All these continued studies do is prove how hard it is to properly double blind an invasive procedure. Guy (Help!) 12:42, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
@JzG: Harrison's and NICE are the equivalent of climate change deniers?!? Now there's a fringe view! Acu, like anything else on WP, is to be depicted according to what properly weighted (MED)RS say. Not according to the pejoratives other (lesser!) sources (let alone editors!) fling at such MEDRS. Or what other sources/editors predict they'll say. --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 10:40, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
No, they are the equivalent of the reviews of climate science that noted the positions of climate change deniers before the whole fossil fuel lobby funded fraud was exposed. Guy (Help!) 11:03, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
Right. An unproven conspiracy to hijack the best MEDRS. Definitely the stuff of mainspace. --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 11:12, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
Scarcely unproven. The problems with quackademic medicine are well documented. Guy (Help!) 23:43, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
So there is a source weighty enough to balance (let alone justify excluding) NICE? Let's see it. --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 00:46, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
Have you noticed how NICE recommendations for acupuncture are dropping one by one? Guy (Help!) 00:51, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
Ah, Guy's comment on the trend, an excellent MEDRS (/sarcasm). FWIW & IIRC, they had a couple a decade-ish ago, then they added a couple (I think following Vickers), then they removed one (the most recent one, for low back pain). Even if/though you're right about the overall trend and its implications, "citation needed". --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 01:18, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
Author affiliation: "Acupuncture Meridian Science Research Center, College of Korean Medicine, Kyung Hee University, Seoul". That ends the conversation. Korean acupuncture studies are as biased as Chinese ones. Everyone is familiar with the acupuncture anaesthesia hoax, I hope? Guy (Help!) 13:10, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
Ends which conversation exactly? --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 10:21, 4 December 2018 (UTC)
An unfounded derogatory assertion aimed at the author of a paper is not a valid critique of a source. I agree with Middle 8. Both NICE and Harrisons currently recommend acupuncture. They are reliable sources. Let's avoid crystal ball gazing and cite what they say now instead of wondering what they might say in the future. Morgan Leigh | Talk 22:15, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
Nope. "Acupuncture meridian science" is an oxymoron. Acupuncture meridians don't exist, so any centre set up to study them is, by definition, actually part of the pseudoscience industry of SCAM promotion. Guy (Help!) 19:35, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
@ Guy Another red herring. The point is what the NICE guidelines say, and they're cited on NHS website on multiple pages. Here's another (scroll to section Uses of acupuncture). WP:MEDSCI mentions NICE specifically as MEDRS. --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 08:48, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
Not quite. We know that NICE lags behind the science, and always has. It took NICE a long time to finally remove all support for homeopathy. But we can see that the NICE recommendations for acupuncture are being removed one by one. The trajectory is firmly towards the reality-based view that acupuncture is nonsense and against the usually crappy industry-funded, practitioner-run studies which support its use. Guy (Help!) 09:17, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
Maybe they will go that way in the future, but we have to go with what they say now. Otherwise we are crystal ball gazing and that's magic not science. You don't want to advocate for magic do you?Morgan Leigh | Talk 10:22, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
@JzG|Guy No, the way to handle NICE is to cite it along with whatever MEDRS make the point about the trend. --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 14:45, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
Which is what we do. NICE is in conflict with the determination in MEDRS complaint scientific sources that acupuncture is bollocks, so we don't confuse the reader by giving undue weight to the ever-reducing set of NICE guidelines that conflict with reality-based sources. Guy (Help!) 15:43, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
Actually what we do when there are contradictory sources is cite both of them and say what each one says. They are both based in reality, you just don't want to cite the bits you have decided are bogus. Your opinion is not more important than sources. Morgan Leigh | Talk 09:41, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
Guy wrote above: Which is what we do. -- Um no, citing NICE is not the same as not citing NICE.[7] --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 19:28, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
Close: citing the flattering content convenient to your business is not the same as NPOV. Guy (Help!) 23:11, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

Removal of cited information

@AlmostFrancis and Johnuniq: Your removal of this cited information is erroneous. The Joint Commission page says:

"Additionally, it is important to have non-pharmacologic pain treatment modalities available for patients that refuse opioids or for whom physicians believe may benefit from complementary therapies. Non-pharmacologic strategies include, but are not limited to transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, physical modalities (i.e.: acupuncture therapy, chiropractic therapy, osteopathic manipulative treatment, massage therapy, and physical therapy) relaxation therapy, music therapy, aromatherapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, etc. The level of evidence for these therapies is highly variable, and it is evolving. Therefore, our standards do not mandate that any specific complementary options are provided, but allow organizations to determine what modality(s) to offer.

Please explain how "it is important to have" is not a recommendation of these treatments. Morgan Leigh | Talk 04:00, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

The edit in question is diff which added (refs converted to links):
The Joint Commission recommends acupuncture for pain management.[8] The American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine recommends acupuncture[9]
The text quoted above from the first ref does not verify "recommends acupuncture for pain management". They clearly say there is no evidence to justify a recommendation but nevertheless they list ten strategies for patients who refuse opioids or who may benefit from complementary therapies. Try WP:RSN and ask if that source verifies that statement if wanted, but the answer will be no.
The second statement with its ref is even wilder. The ACOEM pdf is advice for how to use their guidelines which are somewhere else. There are no treatment recommendations in the pdf. Acupuncture is mentioned in the context of informing readers that treatment recommendations are made in various categories one of which is "Allied Health Interventions (e.g., acupuncture, manipulation)".
Did you read the sources before adding the text? Johnuniq (talk) 06:18, 30 December 2018 (UTC)
Agree we can't use the second (ACOEM) without the actual MDGuideline, but we can certainly use the first (Joint Commission) as long we stick close to its language. Bold(ish)ly restoring it with revised wording. (Diff) Edit: it might not be specific enough to acu to warrant inclusion however.--Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 10:29, 30 December 2018 (UTC) | added diff 10:48, 30 December 2018 (UTC) | added cmt 10:56, 30 December 2018 (UTC)
@Johnuniq:You are misrepresenting the source. The joint commission source absolutely does not say that there is no evidence, it says the evidence is "variable and evolving", which is an entirely different thing. If a patient can't tolerate one treatment another is offered. A strategy of a different treatment option is still a recommendation, especially when it says "it is important to have". Morgan Leigh | Talk 04:00, 31 December 2018 (UTC)
What I actually said is "no evidence to justify a recommendation". Reading the Joint Commission's brief statement shows that is obviously correct. The unstated background is that some patients should not rely on a pharmacologic pain treatment because of various potential problems, and doing anything the patient hopes might alleviate their condition could be better. Using their statement to write "recommends acupuncture for pain management" is completely wrong and failing to acknowledge that is perplexing. Johnuniq (talk) 06:00, 31 December 2018 (UTC)
Yes, you did actually say that they say there is no evidence to justify a recommendation. However that is not what they say. They say the evidence is "variable and evolving". And they say "it is important to have" i.e. a recommendation.Morgan Leigh | Talk 10:32, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

RfC - Again

There is an RfC relevant to this topic at - the COI noticeboard Morgan Leigh | Talk 00:44, 1 January 2019 (UTC)


List Article

There is a pretty ugly area in the middle of the article that seems is ripe to be made into a list. Is there any reason a list article couldn't be made for other condition without strong evidence and then linked here. Or even better just remove the list of uselessness. AlmostFrancis (talk) 05:39, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

From the context, I guess you mean Acupuncture#Other conditions. What is ugly about it? --Hob Gadling (talk) 05:45, 23 December 2018 (UTC)
Maybe ugly was the wrong word. It seems odd to take up so much screen space saying that there is no evidence for effectiveness for this long list of randomness. It seems that this could be handled either with a sentence saying many conditions show no effectiveness or if necessary a list article of what has not been effective. AlmostFrancis (talk) 05:58, 23 December 2018 (UTC)
However, the information is of encyclopedic value. For one thing, it is possible to search the article for an item of interest and it may be found in this list, along with a reliable source. That is useful. Johnuniq (talk) 06:11, 23 December 2018 (UTC)
It also gives the reader a good picture of how well-researched this field is, how devastating the results are, and how many false-positive statistically significant results are to be expected (one for every nineteen insignificant ones). --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:44, 23 December 2018 (UTC)
I agree that a list of things a given treatment is not useful for is a waste of space. If you want to keep this list, I ask you if you would support the inclusion of a huge list of the conditions that aspirin is not good for on the aspirin page? Morgan Leigh | Talk 03:55, 31 December 2018 (UTC)
See WP:OTHERTHINGSEXIST. Regardless of that, if aspririn had as many attempts by its proponents to prove it could do stuff beyond its actual usefulness as acupuncture had, I for one would be interested in such a section.
Journals have often refused unsuccessful studies because they regarded them as a "waste of space", leading to distortion of scientific literature (file drawer effect). You are probably not aware that this is a problem and that, in order to improve the quality of research, there are attempts to prevent that by pre-registration of studies. We should not counteract such attempts by falling back into habits now known to be error-prone and thoughtlessly and naively omitting to report those few negative results here. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:44, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

Removal of cited information, allegation of COI?

The Joint Commission requires the organizations it accredits to provide complementary, non-pharmacologic pain treatments (e.g. acupuncture) for patients who may benefit from them, such use potentially reducing the need for opioids. The Joint Commission allows organizations to choose which type(s) of complementary treatment to provide — it mandates none in particular because the evidence base for these treatments varies widely and is incomplete. Cited to https://www.jointcommission.org/standards_information/jcfaqdetails.aspx?StandardsFaqId=1813&ProgramId=46

@Roxy the dog: why have you removed the abovementioned cited information without a valid reason? You originally justified your reversion by claiming the editor had a COI and suggested a non COI editor should make the edit. I made that edit and you have reverted it with the edit summary "As before". Are you claiming I have a COI? Morgan Leigh | Talk 11:01, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

See Johnuniq's reply to you in the section above. -Roxy, the dog. wooF 11:03, 31 December 2018 (UTC)
That reply is not pertinent as it refers to different text. Morgan Leigh | Talk 11:34, 31 December 2018 (UTC)
Neither is a self-sourced statement on the website of a trade body that has clearly been the subject of industry lobbying. Guy (Help!) 17:30, 31 December 2018 (UTC)
No true MEDRS says acupuncture is good for anything. --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 20:11, 31 December 2018 (UTC)
@JzG: You appear to be asserting that this is not a reliable source for this information. Is this the case? Morgan Leigh | Talk 21:58, 31 December 2018 (UTC)
I am asserting that it is a non-neutral interpretation of a primary source. And in related news, I am now willing to bet you will be topic banned in the near future. Guy (Help!) 00:59, 1 January 2019 (UTC)
Can you please be more specific? Which part is not a neutral representation of what the source says? Are you seriously asserting that a source cannot be cited for information about it's own policies? WP:PRIMARYCARE says "Material based on primary sources can be valuable and appropriate additions to articles. However, primary sources may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements that any educated person—with access to the source but without specialist knowledge—will be able to verify are directly supported by the source." This source is being used in exactly this way. It is supporting a straightforward statement about the organisation's policy.
In related news, you have been making false assertions about Middle 8 and I at the COI noticeboard. Fortunately others are on to you and have rectified your false claims. Morgan Leigh | Talk 04:41, 1 January 2019 (UTC)
The text quoted in the OP has no place in this article because it says nothing about the topic other than that an organization mentioned acupuncture in a list of ten strategies for patients who refuse opioids or who may benefit from complementary therapies. Consider adding the text at an article about the organization or about pain treatment but adding it here would be wildly inappropriate. That is because it is cherry-picked boosterism which conveys a suggestion [that there is a reason to think acupuncture is an effective pain-relief treatment] that is not present in the source. Johnuniq (talk) 05:34, 1 January 2019 (UTC)
Sorry for the late reply. It is a primary source and therefore difficult to tell if the information is due. Acupuncture is only mentioned in an i.e. and not directly addressed. It states the modalities would be complementary not that they are by definition complementary medicine. Switching i.e. to e.g. is source misrepresentation. "Such as" implies that it is an example and not the only benefit mentioned... Basically it is a bad source that is barely about acupuncture that was aggressively misrepresented. AlmostFrancis (talk) 21:53, 4 January 2019 (UTC)
I aggressively agree with leaving this out; it's not specific enough to acu (note, Morgan Leigh). No, the pipelink to CAM doesn't belong there; my error (added at last minute). If this source is added to some other article, it needs to be clear these are not all CAM's. (Quibbles: It's an expert body's practice recommendation -- isn't it? -- and MEDRS doesn't deem these primary. Re i.e. vs. e.g.: pls see #2 in my reply under subsection "Harrison's".) --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 10:45, 6 January 2019 (UTC); minor addition 14:41, 6 January 2019 (UTC), revise for clarity 03:22, 7 January 2019 (UTC)
No the source is an accreditation organization's FAQ on how to meet certain necessary standards for accreditation. Perhaps the reason you are misrepresenting sources is that you are not taking the time to familiarize yourself with what you are using as a source.AlmostFrancis (talk) 07:00, 7 January 2019 (UTC)
Ah, yes, accreditation, no kind of job for experts. --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 02:05, 8 January 2019 (UTC)
If you do not understand the difference between the CDC and the Joint Commission then you are going to have a hard time editing in medical topics. If you do not understand the difference between a standard and a recommendation you are going to have issues editing at all.AlmostFrancis (talk) 03:08, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

Needle play

We should probably have a see-also link to needle play, which (in its milder forms) is a recreational parallel to acupuncture. -- The Anome (talk) 14:18, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

I disagree. I don't think the needle players are making any pseudoscientific or medical claims, or claiming to be a system of medicine that works !! -Roxy, the dog. wooF 17:27, 7 January 2019 (UTC)
Do you have a source making the comparison? Otherwise if we are just voting I would go with No. "Needle Play" would be an excellent name for a band though. AlmostFrancis (talk) 00:16, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 14 January 2019

Please change "during" in the following sentence of the lead to "due to" the sources seems to make the case that the political changes were causative and certainly the prevalence of western medicine was a causative factor. "Acupuncture fluctuated in popularity in China during changes in the country's political leadership and the preferential use of rationalism or Western medicine." AlmostFrancis (talk) 06:18, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

 Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit protected}} template. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:40, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

Harrison's

While no doubt a valued source Harrison's does not need its own section with a specific call out. The information should either be added to the earlier prose when showing value or added to the list when not. Also if you need two or three caveats for a recommendation better to leave it out. AlmostFrancis (talk) 06:35, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

"According to Harrison's, acupuncture can be considered a useful adjunctive treatment in PTSD and comorbid depression in war veterans if, despite the lack of evidence, patients find it calming and relaxing". I love how this is taken ad endorsement rather than what it is, a plain statement that it doesn't work. Harrison's can be summarised thus: there's no good evidence of effectiveness. Guy (Help!) 09:22, 5 January 2019 (UTC)
I see this a lot among homeopathic medicine sellers: The medicine works exactly as well as a placebo but, as is often the case, both the the placebo and the snake oil give better results than no treatment -- so the homeopathic pill pusher makes a big deal about it being more effective than no treatment. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:22, 5 January 2019 (UTC)
Yes, Harrison's seems to be making the exact same type of argument, doesn't it? Here is the exact wording:
A number of complementary alternative medicine approaches including acupuncture, mindfulness meditation, yoga, and massage are also being used in PTSD. Although not evidence-based treatments per se, if they facilitate a relaxation response and alleviation of hyperarousal or sleep symptoms, they can be considered useful adjunctive modalities.p.471-e5
That is obviously not an endorsement of efficacy (which requires evidence from RCT's). What is it then? --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 17:28, 5 January 2019 (UTC); added page # 17:31, 5 January 2019 (UTC)
It's a statement of what people "can" consider. People "can" consider all kinds of things, so I guess it's like a shrug of the shoulders - kind of a nothing burger. I have some additional problems with the addition, as well as the undue aspect noted above. First, Harrison's should not be personified into some kind of speaking entity: it is a collection of monographs that each have authors and these should be cited properly. Harrison's now has a 20th edition so the 2015 is superseded (I don't have access to the newer one yet). Alexbrn (talk) 17:37, 5 January 2019 (UTC)
"consider" at Wiktionary
Here it's used in the sense of #3 (as a ditransitive verb), yes? For example "Acupuncture can be considered a pseudoscience" would probably be taken as the source deeming acu a pseudoscience (which is how I would take it). --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 10:00, 6 January 2019 (UTC)
The context is clear: acu is not evidence based "per se", but "can be considered useful". Donald Trump can consider he pulled off a diplomatic triumph in North Korea. People are irrational. Or it might mean something else. But I think if we're getting to the point where sources need to be tortured for meaning, it's time to move on. (Our pseudoscience sources are very direct about that classification, so I'm not sure if it's helpful to invoke them as though they aren't). Alexbrn (talk) 16:32, 6 January 2019 (UTC)
Who said our PS sources were unclear?
The point is this is a sig view about using acu clinically. Irrational it may be, but it exists -- one cannot deny acu's clinical scope, e.g. in US academic medical centers, no matter how much one wants to just focus on RCT's -- and Wikipedia is not the place to right that great wrong. Or to dispute the reliability of good sources (see also below, re the revert of good material on tension headache).
Also, would you mind answering my good-faith question about the grammar, please?--Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 18:34, 6 January 2019 (UTC)
You were the one who raised pseudoscience sources - I don't think they are relevant. I have answered about meaning. Alexbrn (talk) 18:42, 6 January 2019 (UTC)
Alexbrn - Sorry if using the word "pseudoscience" as part of a grammatical example was confusing. Another example: "If seen frequenting gun shops, Smith can be considered dangerous". That's a warning about Smith. Not a "shrug". --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 00:22, 10 January 2019 (UTC)
It isn't like what we have, with the context of acu not being evidence based. You are imagining meaning in the text that goes beyond what it can reasonably support. If you are so desperate to add the POV the acu helps with PTSD, and it's truly accepted knowledge that it does, then it should be easy to find some decent sources that say without being subjected to ingenious exegesis. Alexbrn (talk) 06:32, 10 January 2019 (UTC)
Neither my motivation nor my point. The point is.... see my previous comment beginning with "the point is". It's an important point and belongs in the article, but I agree there are better examples of it. --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 08:51, 10 January 2019 (UTC); clarify, 10:02, 10 January 2019 (UTC), 01:16, 11 January 2019 (UTC); abridge (redundant) 01:55, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
My thought on that quote are three fold. First, once again you are misrepresenting sources. Somehow you translated "alleviation of hyperarousal or sleep symptoms" into calming. Their are a myriad ways in which those concepts do not mesh including their immediacy, amplitude, and scope. Second, once again you took something that was part of a list and only added it to one subject. This is an encyclopedia, if a concept does not even deserve its own structure in a source then probably it does not deserve one here. My third thought is granted a personal one. Please do not use the rather obvious pain of soldiers to further an agenda, it is unseemly.AlmostFrancis (talk) 04:45, 6 January 2019 (UTC)
(1) Your point is overdone. If you have a better way of paraphrasing the idea for a lay audience, please just suggest it. (2) If Jones says "a number of fruits, including oranges, grapefruits, lemons, and limes, are high in Vitamin C", then in the article on limes we can say that Jones says limes are high in vitamin C. From context, one understands that the source is ascribing the given quality to each item in the list, not (only) to the set of all items taken together. (True both here and above.) (3) Please AGF. I believe the proper target for your concern is the source (which was not cherry-picked; all mentions of acu from Harrison's are cited in the diff). --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 10:00, 6 January 2019 (UTC); punct. fix 10:05, 6 January 2019 (UTC)
I have a suggestion to paraphrase it in a way that is much less misleading and conveys the entire encyclopaedic content consiely and without original research:
""
This is all we need to say about Harrison's in order to ensure that readers are fully informed. Guy (Help!) 09:57, 7 January 2019 (UTC)
Guy: No. See my example above "Smith can be considered....". If the statement meant nothing, why would they include it? And no need to paraphrase, just quote it. --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 00:22, 10 January 2019 (UTC)
I agree with Guy that this should not be added. For me this just reads as a caveat that if someone has PTSD with comorbid depression anything that seemingly helps them relax and sleep should not be discontinued. I think everyone has had their say now and it seems agreement will not be reached. Middle 8 as long as you acknowledge that consensus is against you we can be done here. AlmostFrancis (talk) 00:59, 10 January 2019 (UTC)
Sorry, I didn't realize you'd been appointed as moderator (cf. WP:OWNBEHAVIOR, bullet point #5). --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 01:20, 10 January 2019 (UTC)
I have never edited your talk page. You are of course welcome to keep banging on this drum If you want, I was just hoping you would acknowledge that you do not have consensus so that others can move on to more improving the article. AlmostFrancis (talk) 05:38, 10 January 2019 (UTC)
("cf.", not "per" -- I think the point was clear.) Yes, because we're currently busy with so many other pressing threads.sarcasm As helpful as I'm sure your intentions are, we're doing fine without moderation. Thank you. --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 08:55, 10 January 2019 (UTC) struck; better elsewhere.
I still have no idea what you are talking about. If we were doing fine then the article would not need to be locked down. However the admin who locked it seems a reasonable sort of person and if you were to agree that consensus is against you and to only edit with consensus then I am sure it could be unlocked.
Came here to strike my cmt above; if this needs to be pursued, better at user talk. --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 01:45, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
On second thought: Fair enough. There are better examples of the general view it expresses. --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 02:13, 11 January 2019 (UTC); clarify change o' mind, 18:35, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

Headache

This (ES: Why add older material than what we already cite; also see Talk comments raising conncers about citing an old edition of "Harrison's" like this) was a poor revert. We do not delete the previous edition of a MEDRS while waiting to get hold of the freshest one (2015 vs. 2018 for Harrison's). More importantly, Harrison's conclusion was unique (flat-out no efficacy) relative the Cochrane reviews (2016 and 2012[sic]) (as well as the NICE guidelines, which I'd added earlier, but were also reverted), and is thus valuable. One would almost think I'm not allowed to add MEDRS here. Can't imagine why. --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 18:18, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Why would we add old material when we cite newer? Especially in a fast-changing field it's important to reflect up-to-date knowledge. This article is already over-stuffed with redundant sourcing, the last thing we need is yet more of that - especially if it seems to be part of some WP:POINTy stunt, as your parting words just above seem to suggest. I don't think we should be citing old editions either - it's possible (probably even) the new edition says the same, but it's best to check: there is no WP:DEADLINE. Alexbrn (talk) 18:30, 6 January 2019 (UTC)
As I said, it's not redundant. Read it, compare to Cochrane. And 2015 ≠ "old". Exactly, no deadline, leave MEDRS in till we get the newer one. Would you remove a 2015 Harrison's cite from chiropractic saying it didn't work because the new one might say differently? This isn't how we do things. --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 18:43, 6 January 2019 (UTC)
Yes, it pretty much is. Harrison's says it does not work, in weak language. We have better and more recent sources saying the same thing. Guy (Help!) 18:55, 6 January 2019 (UTC)
Exact quote - "There is no evidence for the efficacy of acupuncture." p.2594 Weak? Read the Cochrane, it says moderate evidence that acu does work. --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 19:31, 6 January 2019 (UTC)
The chapter Harrison's is out of date since it says wrt headache "There is no evidence for the efficacy of acupuncture" - but the later Cochrane review(s) discuss evidence. And for the last time, can we stop citing it as "Harrison's" as though The Book speaks. This is a collection of chapters written by named people and must be cited properly, if we're to cite it at all. Alexbrn (talk) 18:59, 6 January 2019 (UTC)
Different sources reach different conclusions all the time -- Harrison's may well have thought weak(ish) evidence to be essentially none. "If we're to cite it at all"? So we add the chapter authors, no reason to remove the cite. --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 19:31, 6 January 2019 (UTC)
I've asked about this at WT:MED --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 19:31, 6 January 2019 (UTC)
"May well have thought" is not really a great basis for proceeding. Once again, let's not go torturing texts to produce readings. To reflect the current state of human knowledge, a systematic review of 2016 which explicitly considers the matter is much better than an older textbook which does not. Alexbrn (talk) 19:40, 6 January 2019 (UTC)
Removing a good source with a different conclusion (however they reached it) is also a poor way to go. --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 19:49, 6 January 2019 (UTC)
Yeah, you keep saying that. I disagree: I don't think your edit improved the article, and you haven't convinced me otherwise. It's vital our health content is up-to-date. Anyway, I (at least) should have access to the latest edition before this page gets unlocked so we'll be in a better position then to think about recent sourcing, what it says, and what the current state of human knowledge on this topic is! Alexbrn (talk) 19:57, 6 January 2019 (UTC)
From WT:MED discussion:

The 20th edition says in chapter 422 under TREATMENT Tension-Type Headache: "For chronic TTH, amitriptyline is the only proven treatment; other tricyclics, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, and the benzodiazepines have not been shown to be effective. There is no evidence for the efficacy of acupuncture." That's the only mention of acupuncture with regard to headache.
— User:Natureium 19:56, 6 January 2019

Unsurprisingly it didn't change (it's not like RCT's aren't converging). --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 20:08, 6 January 2019 (UTC)
Cool - I approve of the newer source. The way to deal with this is to stick chronic tension-type headaches in the big list of things acupuncture is useless for, and leave Cochrane for other types of headache. Alexbrn (talk) 20:13, 6 January 2019 (UTC)
No, when two strong, recent MEDRS disagree, we keep both, unless there's some good reason not to. --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 03:03, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
I agree with Alexbrn. While Cochrane is a strong source, its finding in this case are very tentative and vague. Harrisons verdict however is direct. In this case I think we go with the strong source that is direct in its findings.
I dont think weak-ish evidence is very useful either (which is one reason I objected to Alexbrn's removal of Harrison's). But I didn't and don't argue to remove Cochrane -- it certainly weighs, and whatever I think of its usefulness, I see no reason to deprecate its quality. It's also helpful that they discuss the evidence in detail, and here the tentativeness and vagueness are simply consequences of the evidence, not a reason to impeach the source. --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 07:22, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
At least we seem to agree on Harrison's 20E. Putting that in pending consensus on how to handle the Cochrane. --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 19:35, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
We don't "agree". That is to misrepresent what I wrote above, and to which you responded "No ...". Alexbrn (talk) 20:13, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
So you don't want Harrison's in there after all? Or not unless the Cochrane's are also removed? Pls clarify --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 20:49, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
WTF are you on about. I wrote clearly what I wanted; you disagreed; another editor agreed with me. This is in the text above. And now you're spamming untrue comments all over the place about how everyone agrees with you. This just looks like trolling now. Alexbrn (talk) 20:53, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
In case other editors care, my response to those accusations is here. Sorry you didn't like my defending my edit all over the place on a user talk page. --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 22:08, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
The biggest problem with this is, as noted above, P=0.05. If a hundred conditions exist, a fake treatment will have a positive evidence base for five of them. Given the extensive and growing list of things for which acupuncture definitively doesn't work, and the ever-weakening support for it in the literature for those that remain, it would be a lot simpler to simply note that if has been disproven for most conditions and the remaining evidence is weak, getting weaker, and probably due to bias (see e.g. [10]). Guy (Help!) 23:47, 6 January 2019 (UTC)
@ Guy That being the case, why have you expressed support for the revert in question (read it carefully)? --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 04:24, 8 January 2019 (UTC)clarify, 04:39, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

Full protection

I have fully protected the article for two weeks to prevent any further problematic editing. This will allow discussion to take place without a background of edit-warring on the page itself. Any uncontroversial changes to the article (spelling, grammar etc.) may be requested here by using the template {{Edit fully-protected}}. Black Kite (talk) 18:24, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Good call. The current protected version is the same as the last version before the edit war (21:42, 4 January 2019‎), so we even avoided m:The Wrong Version... :)   --Guy Macon (talk) 17:08, 7 January 2019 (UTC)
Yes, this version was an obviously untenable deviation from the emerging sci consensus on efficacy.[sarcasm] --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 04:03, 8 January 2019 (UTC)
The emerging scientific consensus is that acupuncture is bullshit, as you see by the ever lengthening list of conditions for which it is definitively established to be ineffective. Needless to say the cult responds with more pseudoscience. The experience of homeopathy indicates this will work for maybe a decade. Guy (Help!) 11:44, 9 January 2019 (UTC)
( READ THE DIFF PLEASE ! <== stage whisper ) Which is why I'm gobsmacked you'd support removal of a source saying exactly that. --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 20:26, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

I see, though, that they have snuck one in there. The reason why acupuncture is a pseudoscience is NOT because its mechanics are unknown or achieved using an alternative model of the human body, but because it doesn't demonstrate efficacy. If there was an effect, we would still be able to use the scientific toolbox refining it even when the actual mechanic was absent. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.167.11.207 (talk) 15:43, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

Almost. Lack of demonstrated efficacy is also not enough. Demonstrated inefficacy is, and demonstrated conflict with accepted knowledge is an added bonus. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:01, 18 January 2019 (UTC)
Determined promotion in the face of lack of proven efficacy is what defines quackery. Pseudoscience is when the True Believers then start trying to produce sciencey-looking evidence to support their pre-existing beliefs. Guy (Help!) 09:03, 18 January 2019 (UTC)
(partial cross-post to COIN [11]) True Believers like the fringe, unreliable National Academy of Medicine, for example (summary[12], discussion[13]). This qualified endorsement (which represents the US National Academies' position on pain management[14]) demolishes the idea that there's sci consensus that acu is bullshit, pseudoscience et cetera; it's obviously much more complicated than that. (If anything, a statement by a sci academy of unsurpassed authority represents a sci consensus on the matter, or at least the majority view which should probably be stated in WP's voice, with wholesale dismissals of acu qualifying as a minority view.) --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 14:55, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
Isn't it singular how when a practitioner of quackery promotes a source as "unsurpassed" it always, purely by coincidence happens to be an outlier in making confident statements in favour of their quackery, rather than the vastly less confident statements in the majority of sources. The National Academies have been assiduously lobbied by acupuncturists and other quacks looking to sell their bullshit into the VA, for decades. It is hardly surprising that this results in in-universe descriptions of quackery appearing in their publications. Guy (Help!) 15:18, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
Guy: NAM isn't the kind of source that outlies; rather, it shifts the center of gravity. Except here it doesn't contradict anything, because it doesn't assert efficacy. It basically says no evidence for efficacy (i.e. real acu > sham acu) and then says acu is a "powerful tool" in pain treatment anyway. That stance is fully consistent with the extent of acu's adoption clinically, where the choice is "acu or not?", not "real acu or sham acu?". As for NAM being lobbied, let's see a source for that, and per PARITY it'll need to be strong. Aside re "unsurpassed": On CAM article talk pages, I've used that term for three things: Ernst as a CAM expert, meta-analyses (as a genre) as MEDRS for efficacy, and the NAM for position statements on medicine. In each case one could make a decent argument that rather than "unsurpassed", the better term is "unequaled". --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 17:01, 29 January 2019 (UTC)
The information in the first part of the NAP source based on research this century seems to be mostly in line with what we have in the article now. Some studies show no benefit over placebo, some find a modest improvement over placebo, and others find the data insufficient to go either way. All of this is using qualifying language like "it has been shown", "studies suggest", "also has been suggested" to make clear that these are observations and not findings. The paper is interesting in this respect I guess but I am not sure what wording we could use. "The NAP notes that some studies sugest" to be honest I think we are fine use that in Wikipedias voice even without the NAP. I'll add my thoughts on the second part later.AlmostFrancis (talk) 19:04, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
Actually I don't think it is a good use of time to analyze that source without knowing exactly what you want to use it for. You should start a new section with the wording you want to use if you are looking to build consensus for an edit. I don't agree with you though that the source is an endorsement matter of fact I think it is being very careful not to endorse it. Just look at the paragraph above to see the kind of wording you would expect in an endorsement.AlmostFrancis (talk) 23:53, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
endorse: "to give one's approval to".
NAM summary paragraph:[15] Nonpharmacologic interventions for pain treatment, including acupuncture, physical therapy and exercise, cognitive-behavioral therapy, and mindfulness meditation, also are powerful tools in the management of chronic pain. Many are components of successful self-management. While further research is needed for some nonpharmacologic interventions to better understand their mechanism of action and optimal frequency and intensity, they may provide effective pain relief for many patients in place of or in combination with pharmacologic approaches.
That is, as I stated, a qualified endorsement: the first sentence being the endorsement, the final being the qualification. --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 17:01, 29 January 2019 (UTC)
Actually I don't think it is a good use of time to analyze that source without knowing exactly what you want to use it for. You should start a new section with the wording you want to use if you are looking to build consensus for an edit. I don't agree with you though that the source is an endorsement matter of fact I think it is being very careful not to endorse it. Just look at the paragraph above to see the kind of wording you would expect in an endorsement.AlmostFrancis (talk) 03:18, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

Nordic Countries

This content (including all five Nordic countries, though less so in Finland.) from the adoption section does not seem to follow from this source [1] and should probably be removed. The source discussing all types of CAM and only looked at patient with Multiple Sclerosis.

Yes we can if it is a reality-based assessment of efficacy. Remember, we are talking here about something that has no plausible mechanism and which doesn't actually work for the cited condition (or indeed any other). Guy (Help!) 13:15, 9 January 2019 (UTC)
Not in the vast majority of CAM we can't. Yet adoption exists and must be studied according to some metric or other. Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 13:42, 9 January 2019 (UTC)
  • As long as we specify it's just MS (and otherwise represent the source properly) I don't believe there's a problem. It's still relevant to CAM adoption even if we don't yet know the fuller picture, condition-wise. (Also, controlling for condition treated can afford more rigorous comparisons across countries. Which is not our goal -- just saying it appears to be a solid piece of research.)
Discussing multiple CAM's is OK as long as the source breaks down each CAM specifically, as this source does (see e.g. the first sentence in the abstract, and Table 2). --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 12:58, 9 January 2019 (UTC)
Yes, it's a problem, because it's the argumentum ad populum. The fact that people use SCAM doesn't make the SCAM legitimate, but is often interpreted as doing so by the lay public, with the eager prompting of SCAM vendors. Guy (Help!) 13:14, 9 January 2019 (UTC) more, 13:33, 9 January 2019 (UTC)
The point here is adoption, not legitimacy. --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 13:33, 9 January 2019 (UTC)
Yes, it has been adopted by quacks. We have no inkling that it would be legitimate. Tgeorgescu (talk) 15:10, 9 January 2019 (UTC)
The point is that quacks use the circular and fallacious argument that X is popular therefore X must work, therefore we should promote it so it remains popular, and we can continue to claim it works, even though there is no reason to suppose it should work, no plausible mechanism by which it should work, and no good evidence it does work. Guy (Help!) 19:15, 9 January 2019 (UTC)
Wikipedia isn't censored (i.e., just because somebody might or does misuse information, we don't exclude) --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 20:03, 9 January 2019 (UTC); more 22:27, 9 January 2019 (UTC)
But we do exclude things if they are superfluous. If the article already says in so many words that acupuncture is used widely although it does not work, why mention that in country X, person Y uses it against Z against which it does not work? --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:39, 10 January 2019 (UTC)
Again, adoption, not efficacy. There's plenty of bullshit people believe, but it's still encyclopedic if a lot of people believe it and sources say so. -Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 08:44, 10 January 2019 (UTC)
We include it by reference to independent commentary saying it's bullshit. This is not that. Guy (Help!) 12:16, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
By that argument we'd be omitting a lot of sources on sociology of religion (plenty awfulness there) just because they lack independent commentary saying it's bullshit. Scholars often refrain from such polemic -- what would be the point? --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 18:33, 11 January 2019 (UTC); abridge 18:39, 11 January 2019 (UTC), ce 18:41, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
Plenty of sources make clear that religions deal in myths, there is no special reason to debunk "born of a virgin" in order to call it myth. "Virgin birth is a myth" is WP:BLUE. Tgeorgescu (talk) 19:05, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
If only there were such sources for CAM.sarcasm Really? Any source on adoption has to say "oh and it's BS", as if all our other critical sources aren't enough? (note, I agree there may be other issues w/ the source under discussion)--Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 20:47, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
It is a primary source that not only speaks just about MS, but only contacted people in MS societal groups to take the survey. I don't think the entry "one study found some evidence that members of the MS society in Finland are less likely to use acupuncture than other Nordic countries" is a useful addition to this article.AlmostFrancis (talk) 22:51, 10 January 2019 (UTC)
@ AlmostFrancis: FWIW, I'm OK with this edit, but didn't agree to it in discussion above, so please use a different ES than "per consensus" in such a case. Thanks --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 08:55, 30 January 2019 (UTC)
Consensus does not mean unanimous consent, so no I will not use a different ES than per consensus in such a case. AlmostFrancis (talk) 00:59, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Skovgaard L, Nicolajsen PH, Pedersen E, Kant M, Fredrikson S, Verhoef M, Meyrowitsch DW (2012). "Use of Complementary and Alternative Medicine among People with Multiple Sclerosis in the Nordic Countries". Autoimmune Diseases. 2012: 841085. doi:10.1155/2012/841085. PMC 3529905. PMID 23304461.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)

Popularity in Europe

Saying, with a perfectly good RS, that acupuncture is a popular CAM in Europe is not argumentum ad populum. Why? Because we're not also saying "therefore, X proposition (say, acu is awesome) is true". It's just a simple fact -- per source, acu is a popular CAM in Europe, full stop. Hence my disagreement with this revert. --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 16:21, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

Being true doesn't make it any less a fallacious appeal to popularity. Forty billion flies can't be wrong, and all that. Guy (Help!) 16:36, 29 January 2019 (UTC)
Could somebody explain what "heavily practiced" means anyway? That the needles are forced in hard? Alexbrn (talk) 16:38, 29 January 2019 (UTC)
That's the point Guy: there is no appeal to popularity in the source (or how it's cited); the report takes a dim view of unproven treatments. (edit: at least parts of it do.) Description ≠ prescription. --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI? 16:53, 29 January 2019 (UTC); add "(edit:....)" qualification, 23:41, 29 January 2019 (UTC)
Here's a great way to reduce the drama: suggest edits on Talk and let someone else review them and make them. That is how we handle conflicts of interest on Wikipedia. You have a vested interest in the content of this article, so make yourself look better by not editing it directly. Guy (Help!) 18:46, 29 January 2019 (UTC)
I fully agree with "the other Guy" on this. Even if you can edit in the area where you have a COI (which is disputed) that doesn't mean that you should. --— Preceding unsigned comment added by Guy Macon (talk • contribs) 19:14, 29 January 2019 (UTC)
Just in case anybody was wondering if I had any opinion on this issue; yes, I do. -Roxy, the dog. wooF 21:04, 29 January 2019 (UTC)
(Preceding three comments are frankly out of place; I've commented at my user talk here.) The question is whether this is a good edit. IOW, whether the statement "[acupuncture] is one of the most common alternative medicine practices in Europe" can be properly sourced to Ramsay 2009, p.45, which says "The three most commonly used alternative therapies in Europe as of 2007 were homeopathy, acupuncture/[TCM], and herbal medicine". --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 21:34, 29 January 2019 (UTC)
My removal had nothing to do with RS but was based on the content being undue. The source is about Canada and the content is about Europe. That is already a red flag that cherry picking is going on. Second European Acupuncture was part of a list an not even mentioned by itself. Lastly, the wording was almost a complete rehash of the source. If that is the best paraphrasing you can do then probably you are doing something wrong.AlmostFrancis (talk) 03:23, 30 January 2019 (UTC)
OK, your concern isn't RS, it's NPOV, which UNDUE is part of: specifically, representing all sig views on a topic. How does that bear here?
1) Citing uncontroversial info, Ramsay compares Canada with Europe; how is the Europe info any less citeable than the Canada info?
2) What's wrong with being part of a list in this context -- if a source says the top-selling singers in 2018 were A, B and C, is that inferior to an equally-good source presenting the same info as three separate sentences?
3) And why does closeness of paraphrasing matter as long as it's accurate and not a copyvio?
Thanks --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 08:48, 30 January 2019 (UTC)
I don't find your argument convincing for the reasons I have already stated, o I don't see any value in going back and forth with you. As it seems that Guy and Alex agree with me,and so far no one has agreed with you,consensus is to leave it out for the time being. You are certainly welcome to open an RFC or to wait on more input.AlmostFrancis (talk) 01:09, 31 January 2019 (UTC)
(Where did Alexbrn agree?) That's not how consensus works -- we're at least supposed to try and engage. I've posted at WP:NPOVN § Acupuncture's relative popularity in Europe. --Middle 8 (t • c | privacy • acupuncture COI?) 18:17, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

Neutrality

I am concerned by the accent of the "pesudoscience" aspect weighed in the article. It is a well-known fact that a.p. is a form of alternative medicine but it seems like this article was written as an attempt to disprove it by skeptoscience, pointing out inconsistencies in studies instead of describing its methods and goals (and their means). Reading through the whole article, I barely resist the urge to change the title to "the pseudoscience of acupuncture". kuchesezik 21:56, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

It isn't skeptoscience. It's science. The science says that acupuncture works exactly as well as any other placebo, that the results are exactly the same no matter where you put the needles, and that the results are exactly the same whether you put the needles in or just pretend to. We aren't trying to disprove acupuncture. We are trying to write an article that accurately reflects what the WP:MEDRS-compliant sources say, which is that acupuncture doesn't work. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:23, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
What The Other Guy™ said. We are not trying to disprove acupuncture. Science has done that pretty well, actually, and that is right and proper: the job of science is explicitly to try to disprove a hypothesis - what Huxley described as "The great tragedy of Science — the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact." That's why acupuncturists' studies which set out to prove it, are legitimately characterised as pseudoscience. Guy (Help!) 23:34, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
You "Guys" are saying that "science says" something that *some* scientific studies have concluded, but not all. It's pretty unscientific to say things like "science (as if it were an entity) has this very simple judgement about this pretty complicated topic". Its silly, and people that come to the article recognize that the tone of the article is cartoonish in its amplification of few voices (Ernst and Novella).Herbxue (talk) 23:40, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
No, both Guys are right. There is such a thing as bad science, and it is pretty common, especially in alternative medicine. You only need to make one rookie mistake, such as having no control group, and whatever else you do, your study will be worthless. The quality of studies is important, and demanding that "all" scientific studies need to have the same result in order to accept it, is not only silly, but also naive, ignorant, incompetent, and completely detached from the real world.
You do not understand how science works, and you do not understand how Wikipedia works. Please drop the WP:STICK. --Hob Gadling (talk) 04:47, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
Science... does it work like this?[16][17] --Guy Macon (talk) 08:35, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
My kid is really into sharks right now so this made my day :) Herbxue (talk) 20:37, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
  • Ernst's Law absolutely applies to Wikipedia articles: if you are writing about alt-med and you are not hated by the alt-med world, you're not doing it right. Guy (Help!) 23:54, 21 February 2019 (UTC)
  • The original poster and the shark guy might want to compare articles like Dukun and Shamanism, which while describing some medical practices, do not mention once the word pseudoscience and whose talk pages aren't chock full of people protesting about unfair characterizations. This is because (for the most part) practitioners of shamanism, while having diverse religious practices some of which include traditional health care within tribes, aren't trying to compete with mainstream clinicians to secure money set aside for genuine medical treatments. Acupuncturists very much do compete with mainstream practitioners and for these reasons the world is not so full of reputable doctors and publishers shitting all over the former, and much more abundant in the case of the latter. One of the goals of acupuncturists and TCM providers in general is to have their practices rated along side treatments for common ailments and palliative care. Medical professionals reviewing acupuncture and related treatments have been very forthcoming with regard to what they think of it. Wikipedia dispassionately reflects this and there's nothing wrong with that. Edaham (talk) 06:06, 22 February 2019 (UTC)
  • My apologies. I didn't make it clear that I was agreeing with you. If there were a bunch of Dukun practicioners generating dubious "research" and demanding payment from medical insurance we would no doubt see a lot more sources talking about whether Dukun actually does anything. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:30, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

Cite cleanup

@Þjarkur: Thanks for fixing the cite html. I looked at that earlier but could not work out how to handle the fact that some of the cites end up with two ref parameters. The problem can be seen by editing the whole article and showing a preview without making any changes. Two warnings are shown at the top. The problem currently is due to the repeated ref in Acupuncture#Bibliography, part of which follows. 

*{{cite book | ref=Singh2008| ... |ref= {{harvid|Singh & Ernst|2008}}}}
*{{cite journal | ref=Madsen2009 | ... | ref = {{harvid|Madsen|2009}} }}

I'm hoping someone here can fix this. Johnuniq (talk) 00:23, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Þjarkur fixed that, thanks. I thought those anchors were needed but I can't where now. Johnuniq (talk) 00:37, 28 February 2019 (UTC)
@Johnuniq – My fault! I hadn't notice these already existing parameters, and no errors had shown up for me. I believe I have fixed it now (only the Harvard style ref was actually being used). If you are using some addon that shows extra warnings it would be good to know about it (though I had assumed I would be shown a normal duplicate parameters warning) – Þjarkur (talk) 00:51, 28 February 2019 (UTC)
No, I don't use anything extra. I edited the article and previewed it, and saw the warnings at the top. A couple of the duplicate ref link names that I checked were required as I found places the link was used (sorry, that was many hours ago and I have no idea of the details). However, your fixes seem to be good. Johnuniq (talk) 00:55, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Removing URLs

Headbomb made an edit that removed over 120 URLs from citations. I suppose there is a guideline supporting trimming URLs but those links seem very useful to me. Any thoughts? Johnuniq (talk) 06:15, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Those URL were redundant with DOI/PMC/PMIDs and the like, so that's why I removed them. Also I count 11 removals, not 120. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 06:19, 28 February 2019 (UTC)
Ouch, I have no idea how I got that 120 figure. I counted them in my editor and must have made a large blunder. I'll think about the DOI stuff later. Johnuniq (talk) 07:17, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Interesting scientific paper

Acupuncture, ACC and the Medicines Act by Daniel J Ryan

The New Zealand Medical Journal 1st December 2017, Volume 130 Number 1466

https://www.nzma.org.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/78733/Ryan-FINAL.pdf

https://www.nzma.org.nz/journal/read-the-journal/all-issues/2010-2019/2017/vol-130-no-1466-1-december-2017/7430

The paper found that "The evidence presented in this report shows that New Zealand acupuncturists routinely claim much wider benefits for their practices than is justified by the evidence, or allowed by law." --Guy Macon (talk) 14:31, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

In other news, water found to be wet. But it is good to see this sort of systematic survey; do we have this type of information for any other jurisdictions? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:33, 27 March 2019 (UTC)
We do have an article on Dry water... (smile) --Guy Macon (talk) 15:58, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

ANI Notice

Information icon There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is Acupuncture: not sure what to do here. Guy Macon (talk) 18:00, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Missing link to the article in Japanese

I'm sorry, I don't know how to edit the sidebar myself, but I believe it's missing the link to https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%8D%BC, which is surprising because that one links back no problem. Help? FileComplaintHere (talk) 17:53, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

NPOV

"因为缺乏足够的现代医学实验证实其疗效，针灸常在部分国家被视作替代疗法甚至伪科学。" from zh:针灸

Acupuncture is only regarded as pseudoscience in some countries and regions, not the all over the world. Please avoid the regional bias, and use NPOV statements. --風雲北洋 WP※English is very difficult 18:23, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

You should read WP:NPOV because it doesn't mean what you think it means. Roxy, the dog. wooF 18:25, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
Obviously a NPOV issue. Things about whether TCM is pseudoscience have already clearly been stated afterward and in TCM page. For the better-off NPOV, there's no need to be put ahead as preface. --36.227.225.249 (talk) 15:26, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
Also, User:Masdggg, please read through the archives linked in the second information box above. Your concerns regarding the use of "pseudoscience" have been covered many many times.-- Jezebel's Ponyobons mots 18:41, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
A reminder also that we're interested in scientific consensus of its status, so please try providing sources that illustrate that, from whichever country. El_C 23:07, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

This article is about acpupncture rather than Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). And whether TCM is scientific is largely in debate (many opinions exists: non-science, pseudoscience, proto-science, pre-science, science, etc...), which can be seen (at least partially) in the article of Traditional Chinese medicine. As such, stating "TCM is pseudoscience..." as a simple fact is obviously violating WP:NPOV. Such big debate should be described in a section in the TCM article, or written in an individual section in this article with opinion in each side appropriately stated (which is probably unnecessary as this article is about acpuncture rather then TCM). If it really, really need to be stated brirely in the top section, it should at least be in a NPOV way. Mark related sentence as a POV statement and wait for experts to do appropriate revision. --111.243.224.193 (talk) 15:09, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for using the talk page, IP editor, but I note that you also reinstated your edit which had been reverted by two other editors. That is edit warring, and is the fourth time you have done so in the last 24 hours, a violation of the bright line rule WP:3RR. I'd advise you to self-revert, or risk your IP address being blocked from editing. If you are reverted, you need to discuss and gain consensus, not just reinstate your edit.
I'll state that I don't agree with your analysis - the statement seems neutral and in-line with mainstream scientific opinion, there is no need that I can see for the tag. I will give you a chance to self-revert rather than reverting you myself, and I invite you to present sources that support your position here. GirthSummit (blether) 15:34, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
I'm sorry. Is this the page for acupuncture or TCM? The statement for TCM must've gone astray so been put as preface for acupuncture page. --36.227.225.249 (talk) 15:46, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
Acupuncture is a part of TCM. There is no scientific dispute that qi does not exist, meridians don't exist, and plenty of evidence that acupuncture does not work. Retimuko (talk) 15:54, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
Well, WHO agree that meridians exists (at least in some aspect) [20], and there are also plenty of scientific evidence that acupuncture does work. A very simple idea is that something commits to pseudoscience only if it's non-science and claims to be scientific, while not all TCM practitioners would do the latter, or do it restrictively only for what is really supported by scientific papers. The term "pseudoscience" is a pejorative and biased statement in comparison with "non-science", and the definition of it is also in-obvious in the view of philosophy of science[1] There are still many existing debates about the specificity of TCM in Chinese, for example, the 中醫科學性爭論 and its talk page. Anyway, as the debate DOES exist, adding the POV mark is obviously adequate.--111.243.224.193 (talk) 16:09, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
Nonsense. We edit according to wiki p&g, not rules you just made up. Roxy, the dog. wooF 16:13, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
Especially editing done with a lack of citation or discussion.Rap Chart Mike (talk) 16:15, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for your opinions. I don't see the references scientifically prove that acupuncture doesn't work either. Could you please provide reliable sources that clarify your thought "There is no scientific dispute that qi does not exist, meridians don't exist, and plenty of evidence that acupuncture does not work."?
Plus I don't even see "Traditional Chinese medicine is a pseudoscience" written in TCM page, why is this sentence so necessary for accupucture page? Note that even TCM is not proved totally pseudoscience yet. If you have the references that scientifically prove TCM is totally pseudoscience, please provide and put in the right place. 36.227.225.249 (talk) 16:47, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
Read the references that are cited on the page. You're making a nonsense argument. Rap Chart Mike (talk) 17:00, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Not my usual area of comment, but I don't see that a 1991 report on "a proposed standard" of nomenclature for reporting and researching acupuncture (among other things) is any use in determining the WHO's current, let alone historical, position on efficacy (if any) of acupuncture. GraemeLeggett (talk) 18:35, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Acpuncture, unlike astrology, religious beliefs, and other topics commonly considered as pseudoscience, is scientifically testible[2], and should therefore be treated separately on the basis.
In the review of controlled clinical trials, WHO has approved acupuncture to be used in several conditions, with related scientific evidence reviewed and provided. In particular, for pain relief:
  • "The effectiveness of acupuncture analgesia has already been established in controlled clinical studies. As mentioned previously, acupuncture analgesia works better than a placebo for most kinds of pain, and its effective rate in the treatment of chronic pain is comparable with that of morphine."
  • "In addition, numerous laboratory studies have provided further evidence of the efficacy of acupuncture’s analgesic action as well as an explanation of the mechanism involved. In fact, the excellent analgesic effects of acupuncture have stimulated research on pain."
  • "Because of the side-effects of long-term drug therapy for pain and the risks of dependence, acupuncture analgesia can be regarded as the method of choice for treating many chronically painful conditions."
As acpuncture is supported by scientific evidence and approved by WHO in many aspects, asserting acpuncture as pseudoscience is obviously biased, if not errorneous.--118.163.43.79 (talk) 01:22, 3 July 2019 (UTC)
It isn't written by the WHO, but apparently by only one author, Dr. Zhang. As for comparable with that of morphine that's full-blown delusion. Tgeorgescu (talk) 01:31, 3 July 2019 (UTC)
Also what, 20 years old? Someguy1221 (talk) 01:34, 3 July 2019 (UTC)
Yup, if acupuncture were comparable to morphine, we would not be having this conversation. Tgeorgescu (talk) 01:48, 3 July 2019 (UTC)
Yea it IS published by WHO and it's listed on its website [21]. Here are 2 extra recent randomized studies published in 2016 and 2018 supporting that the analgestic effect of acupuncture is comparable with morphine[22][23]. You'll be good if you can provide a good scientific evidence to oppose them.--211.75.163.193 (talk) 03:56, 3 July 2019 (UTC)
We don't need to refute every study you find. Every time someone who doesn't make a living off of acupuncture writes a review of acupuncture studies, they conclude that the "science" is either so shoddy that no conclusions can be drawn, or that it doesn't work. There are always new acupuncture trials coming out, and they always have the same problems as the ones that already came out. I think I'm going to stop responding after this. But fact is, you're not going to get your way simply by citing enough sources - the ones in the article already are quite authoritative. No, the article is not going to change much unless there is a seismic shift in medical/scientific opinion. That is, this article is not going to change until reality changes. Someguy1221 (talk) 04:05, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ "The boundary between science and pseudoscience is disputed and difficult to determine analytically, even after more than a century of study by philosophers of science and scientists, and despite some basic agreements on the fundamentals of the scientific method." -- [pseudoscience#Philosophy|].
  2. ^ A pointed question: Can science study acupuncture?

Cochrane Review for hypertension

Link and content added in this recent edit. Of course it has a variation on that classic line in the conclusions: "The short‐term effects of acupuncture are uncertain due to the very low quality of evidence." As well, aside from a single Canadian anesthesiologist, the entire authors list is TCM practitioners/professors at Chinese universities. Looking at the 20 clinical trials ultimately used for this review, only two were performed outside of China, and only two attempted real blinding. Of those two, Macklin (2006) reported no difference between acupuncture and control in a sample of 188 subjects who finished the program; and Yin (2007) reported a small difference between acupuncture and control in a sample of 30 subjects who finished the program. So basically, I think even the modest statement in the linked diff is overstating the case, and this work suffers from the exact same problems as reliable sources have pointed out in every other set of acupuncture studies: Most are so terrible that you can't draw conclusions, and reported effects trend towards zero as quality and sample size increase. Someguy1221 (talk) 21:59, 3 July 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 3 September 2019

Change this: "Acupuncture is a pseudoscience[5][6] because the theories and practices of TCM are not based on scientific knowledge, and it has been characterized as quackery.[7]"

to this: "Acupuncture is a product of a non-empirical science and has been previously labeled a pseudoscience, as it cannot be proven with empirical evidence (because it works on energy channels in the body that aren't empirically detectable), so modern science - which is confined to the empirical - has traditionally not accepted it as valid. However, since 2014, the US Military has developed, in a very scientific fashion, "Battlefield Acupuncture" (BFA), and they have begun training their medical staff in BFA techniques. BFA involves putting needles in specific points along the outer ear, and it has proven very effective. The needles can be left in for two to four days for extended relief, and they fit under a helmet. So far, 80 military installations provide acupuncture services to servicemembers and their families.[1] [2]" Thecodercody (talk) 14:21, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

 Not done. See WP:PSCI, etc. A change like this requires WP:CONSENSUS before implementation via an edit request, and while you're free to try to gain it, it's just going to be a waste of everyone's time. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 14:30, 3 September 2019 (UTC)
That is comedy gold. Roxy, the dog. wooF 14:34, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ "Battlefield Acupuncture in the US Military". health.mil. Retrieved 3 September 2019.
  2. ^ "Acupuncture Complements Traditional Pain Management Techniques". health.mil.

Semi-protected edit request on 12 September 2019

I am submitting this edit request because the current page indicates in the second sentence and further down in the discussion of acupuncture states that it is decidedly quackery. The statement is not a well researched one given the growing body of knowledge with respect to acupuncture in 2019.

Change edit related to citation 7 "Acupuncture is a pseudoscience[5][6] because the theories and practices of TCM are not based on scientific knowledge, and it has been characterized as quackery.[7] "

First off, acupuncture is currently recognized by the US Department of Health and Human Services- National Institutes of Health: National Center for Complementary and Integrative Medicine as having a clinical benefit to a patient seeking out this treatment. The benefit largely focuses on "pain conditions" and when practiced by a licensed professional that NIH: NCCIM asserts there have been few reported complications of Acupuncture. At this time the same site (NIH, referenced below) states there is further research needed into the area to determine other conditions that may be positively affected by the use of Acupuncture. See the website here [1].

Now back to the Wikipedia citation 7 and one other citation (256 possibly?). It is largely no consistent with the NIH: NCCIM position on acupuncture. That stated I ask for the ability to edit this article to update it with the NIH current position on acupuncture as well as to reflect the growing body of literature.

Additional references which would benefit the Wikipedia community include: Acupuncture May Be Helpful for Chronic Pain [2]

[3] 174.99.161.74 (talk) 19:43, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ https://nccih.nih.gov/health/acupuncture/introduction
  2. ^ https://nccih.nih.gov/research/results/spotlight/091012
  3. ^ https://www.evidencebasedacupuncture.org/acupuncture-scientific-evidence/

(edit conflict) No, thank you. NCCIH is a government mandated quackery-promoter. It's enough to simply go to our article on it and read about the amount of effort a certain senator went to stop them from using scientific standards, to let you know that it is not a reliable source. Further, the actual evidence on which the NCCIH based that claim is the same as it ever was - there are always new trials that show positive results, and they are so poorly done that no conclusions can be drawn. Reliable sources have drawn conclusions of acupuncture based on the trials that were available for review at the time. That there are new trials virtually identical to the old trials does not move the needle. Someguy1221 (talk) 19:59, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

NCCIH have spent over $3bn trying to validate alternative therapies, thus far with exactly zero success. Guy (help!) 20:17, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 12 September 2019

I am submitting this edit request because the current page indicates in the second sentence and further down in the discussion of acupuncture states that it is decidedly quackery. The statement is not a well-researched one given the growing body of knowledge with respect to acupuncture in 2019.

Change edit related to citation 7 "Acupuncture is a pseudoscience[5][6] because the theories and practices of TCM are not based on scientific knowledge, and it has been characterized as quackery.[7] "

First, acupuncture is currently recognized by the US Department of Health and Human Services- National Institutes of Health: National Center for Complementary and Integrative Medicine as having a clinical benefit to a patient seeking out this treatment. The benefit largely focuses on "pain conditions" and when practiced by a licensed professional that NIH: NCCIM asserts there have been few reported complications of Acupuncture. At this time the same site (NIH, referenced below) states there is further research needed into the area to determine other conditions that may be positively affected by the use of Acupuncture. See the website here [1].

Now back to the Wikipedia citation 7 and one other citation (256 possibly?). It is largely not consistent with the NIH: NCCIM position on acupuncture. That stated I ask for the ability to edit this article to update it with the NIH current position on acupuncture as well as to reflect the growing body of literature.

Additional references which would benefit the Wikipedia community include: Acupuncture May Be Helpful for Chronic Pain [2]

[3] AmricanA (talk) 22:01, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ https://nccih.nih.gov/health/acupuncture/introduction
  2. ^ https://nccih.nih.gov/research/results/spotlight/091012
  3. ^ https://www.evidencebasedacupuncture.org/acupuncture-scientific-evidence/
  •  Not done, as above. Can you identify the web forum or Twitter feed where this is being coordinated please, so I can go there and save everyione some time? Guy (help!) 22:13, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

Medical studies validating acupuncture

More and more studies are explaining how acupuncture works from a western medical perspective. One involving an anti-inflammatory response is here for reference: 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3586443/

I will post more as I have time. It is no longer considered pseudo-science or placebo. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.144.23.237 (talk) 01:13, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

The cited paper is an example of what some skeptics refer to as "tooth fairy science". It is a detailed analysis of a phenomenon that has not yet been demonstrated to exist. Indeed, the clinical trial directly referenced as evidence of an effect of acupuncture did not include a sham control, and the prior reviews cited for older trials found no benefit when sham controls were included. Someguy1221 (talk) 01:00, 14 September 2019 (UTC)
This is true, but not in the way you claim. Use of stage dagger needles and other improved blinding techniques have indeed demonstrated that acupuncture works by fooling the patient into reporting an improvement, rather than by actually effecting any improvement. Guy (help!) 14:42, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

Missing coverage

As discussed in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Constitutional acupuncture, this article is missing at least a mention that there are all of these "schools" of acupuncture. I gave you a source (Micozzi 2010) in that discussion (q.v.). Uncle G (talk) 09:39, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

Odd Finding in Infobox

This page has been using infobox alternative intervention, a template seemingly created by user:CFCF. This infobox template contains a hidden field that prints "benefits - placebo" but the field is not visible on the edit page. The infobox for this page seems to have been changed to infobox alternative intervention from infobox interventions by CFCF in the following edit: edit link. The change was not mentioned in the edit summary. Infobox alternative intervention also has far fewer transclusions (25) than similarly formatted infoboxes such as interventions (495) and medical intervention (1468).

As the infobox fields should be transparent in the edit page, the infobox template should probably be reverted to interventions as an initial measure. Other templates such as Template:Infobox alternative medicine or Template:Infobox medical intervention may actually be better formats for this page. The "benefits" field can be manually reinserted or left out (whether "benefits - placebo" is infobox level information or unnecessarily derisive is a matter of opinion and likely to be controversial).

The behavior exhibited in the infobox edit is potentially concerning. The user appears to have switched the infobox to a niche, self-created template with an uneditable field without noting the change in the edit summary. The edit was almost certainly made with good intentions, but this page is controversial and the edit could be viewed as an attempt to make an inconspicuous and difficult-to-undo change to the contents of the article. --Riccostar (talk) 06:55, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 22 October 2019

Oh no, not again. Guy (help!) 22:19, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

This acticle lists acupuncture as a pseudoscience based on the opinion of a webpage using research more than 20 years old. The WHO considers acupuncture to be part of a system of east Asian medicine that is valid enough that the next round of ICD codes will include Chinese Medicine diagnosis codes like Liver Spleen Disharmony which has a scientifically valid and measurable symptom picture. The Department of Health and Human Services in its 2019 Task Force report lists acupuncture as a first line treatment for pain and the VA includes it as a standard option for treatment of a variety of conditions including pain and PTSD. This is far from a pseudoscience and Wikipedia needs to catch up to the results of research less than 20 years old. Atymy33 (talk) 02:52, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

 Not done Please establish a consensus for an edit before using this template, per its usage instructions. Alexbrn (talk) 02:56, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
Just because a modality is from Traditional Chinese Medicine doesn't automatically mean that it's not pseudoscience. That's a deeply flawed argument. TylerDurden8823 (talk) 05:48, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
I am curious what it would take to change the categorization of a Wikipedia article such as this? My assumption is that a credible source would need to say "acupuncture used to be pseudoscience, but it has progressed to a science"? I am not convinced a source would every say such a thing, bevause it is kind of a silly statement (I am not aware of any case where an alternative approach has become mainstream and those exact words have been stated) so if this is the threshold then there may be a problem because I do not see a way for a topic that has ever been categorized as pseudoscience from breaking free of that characterization to a level that would satisfy wikipedia criteria.2001:56A:75CE:1700:7C7D:FD68:F968:2FFF (talk) 19:27, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
Just to note that that is a problem we are unlikely to ever have. Roxy, the dog. wooF 20:04, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
It does happen, but it's very rare. The canonical example (beloved by hopeful pseudoscientists everywhere) is continental drift.[24] More at Fringe science#Accepted as mainstream. Alexbrn (talk) 20:09, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

SBM is not a reliable source per MEDRS

While the blog Science-Based Medicine is certainly reliable in some circumstances, TylerDurden8823 is incorrect in claiming that it meets MEDRS, since it is not a peer-reviewed journal or respected medical textbook. Therefore, it should not be used to support medical claims as it is being used now, and my edit should not have been reverted. IntoThinAir (talk) 19:52, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Well, let's talk about it here. Why do you think SBM is not suitable for use in this particular instance? Please elaborate. TylerDurden8823 (talk) 20:04, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
I feel that this blog (like any blog, even one written by experts) does not meet MEDRS because, as I stated above, it is not a peer-reviewed journal at all, nor is it subject to the same rigorous review process as a respected academic textbook or a professional organization guideline/statement. IntoThinAir (talk) 21:22, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
WP:PARITY. Tgeorgescu (talk) 21:45, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
IntoThinAir, SBM is not being used for medical claims, it's being used to critique the research into acupuncture (and other forms of SCAM). There is long-standing consensus that it is reliable for this. Guy (help!) 23:22, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

Further reading - Acupuncture manuals?

Maybe I should just be BOLD and remove them, but since this is such a sensitive topic, let us ask here. I noticed that on the "Further reading" section there are a couple of manuals of Acupuncture. I get the feeling that goes against FRINGE. Maybe I'm wrong, I mean, I have, on occasion, gone to "the source" of pseudoscientific stuff in order to learn what they actually claim and believe in. But is it adequate to have those in this article? If this has been discussed thoroughly before, I apologize, I looked in the archives and didn't find anything. VdSV9•♫ 19:10, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

VdSV9, yes, remove them. As much use as a unicorn breeding guide. Guy (help!) 21:19, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Article is textbook example of undue weight and neutrality violations

Let's start with the worst offender, that there's consensus among reliable sources that acupuncture is just pseudoscience. A google search for 'acupuncture pseudoscience' gets 164,000 results while on google scholar it gets 2,530 results while for 'acupuncture science', the google search yields 34,100,000 results and 359,000 results on google scholar. Another search of 'acupuncture quackery' only gets 113,000 results and on google scholar gets 5,700 results. All of this is strong evidence suggesting the claim in the lede of 'pseudoscience' and 'quackery' does not meet the due weight of most sources in accordance to Wikipedia's rules on the lede section. At best, one can only say 'Quackwatch (which according to this list is to be used with caution fyi) has labeled it as quackery' and 'Some researchers view acupuncture to be a pseudoscience' or whichever is the best in-text attribution for the biased sources.

The rest of the article of course follows suit and pretty much only presents sources criticising acupuncture, in spite of the fact that a google search of 'acupuncture benefits' yields 53,300,000 results with plenty of reliable sources visible and on google scholar yields 109,000 results. Of course, judging by the discussion above and what seems to be a very long aversion to dealing with these infractions of Wikipedia's NPOV and due weight guidelines (of which you can very similar ones in other TCM-related articles), I'm not hopeful for any reasonable consensus to be made. Donkey Hot-day (talk) 08:57, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

A Google search is not a source. How many of the hits are there because they read ' Acupuncture is not supported by science.' Answer: we don't know. How many are batshit crazy unreliable sources? We don't know. There is nothing to discuss here unless you present specific sources. GirthSummit (blether) 09:17, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
Besides, "acupuncture pseudoscience" has the word science in it. It's a more specific search term so it makes sense that it would get fewer hits. It's not a good conclusion to draw that because the phrase "acupuncture pseudoscience" got fewer hits than "acupuncture science" that this means that acupuncture is scientifically supported. Also, the quality (not necessarily the quantity) of the sources is really what's most important. TylerDurden8823 (talk) 04:55, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
TylerDurden8823, add to that the fact that the pseudoscience of acupuncture is called acupuncture science by its practitioners... Guy (help!) 10:08, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
Even if Donkey's assertions were true, it would never be surprising that the practitioners and true believers in a fringe topic are also its most prolific writers. Quite a few articles would need major overhauls... Someguy1221 (talk) 10:17, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
Maybe it wasn't clear, but I'm not actually arguing that acupuncture has a scientific basis. Its basis in science could be inconclusive or lacking at the moment, but to call it 'pseudoscience' b/c of that is original research. And yes, you want to be complain about Google (even though these Wiki essays consider Google Scholar reliable), here's one even stronger: searching via PubMed, which is recommended & considered reliable according to Wikipedia's rules on medical sources, yields similar results. 13 results for 'acupuncture pseudo science', just 1 for 'acupuncture pseudoscience' (& it seems to be challenging the claim), & 26 results for 'acupuncture quackery' (many also date back from the 20th century, which is not preferred per WP:RS AGE). Compared to 724 results for 'acupuncture benefits' (& 4049 for 'acupuncture science'). Averaging out, it's roughly 30x more sources, and yet your arguments are that the minority viewpoints deserve to be in the lede, and not down in some criticism-themed section? As for reliable sources, there are reports from the National Cancer Institute, Nature, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, UCSF, UCSD, Rogel Cancer Center at U of Michigan, U of Wisconsin-Madison etc., at least most of which are reputable organisations (even their corresponding Wiki articles seem to agree), not to mention the less recent studies. I also assume from not addressing the dubiousness of Quackwatch being reliable for the lede, you guys have no sound arguments for it? Of course, (without even talking about removing weak sources like that) if I implement some of my sources, give much-needed in-text attribution to pseudoscience and quackery viewpoints, & maybe take out undue minority statements in the lede, I can expect a revert?
Interesting that the lede was much more logical back in 2009; and skimming through recent talk archives, it's amusing how much its regression has continuously been defended by many of the same users. Well whatever, this is not high priority to me at the moment, and the only real loser here will be Wikipedia's credibility. Donkey Hot-day (talk) 11:18, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
It does not matter whether you do original research by counting Google hits, PubMed hits, or <whatever> hits. All of them are original research. As opposed to outright quoting reliable sources saying "acupuncture is pseudoscience", which is not original research and which the article is doing now. It seems like your understanding of WP:OR needs improving. --Hob Gadling (talk) 18:22, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
It seems your understanding of WP:UNDUE needs a great deal of improving, no offense. Donkey Hot-day (talk) 07:59, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
No it doesn't. I explained what exactly you do not understand about OR. But just pointing to some rule page without explaining what you mean, as you did, is just useless handwaving. You try to copy me, but you fail miserably. --Hob Gadling (talk) 18:59, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
First off I have to say I’m here because Donkey Hot-day left a message on my talk page. While I don’t question that acupuncture is alternative medicine and mostly pseudoscientific the end of the second sentence in the lead seem a bit much "and it has been characterized as quackery.” Although the author is the right one, we only allow Barrett as a WP:RS not the other authors, it feels undue and a little on the nose in the lead like that. I’m also not sure I like "because the theories and practices of TCM are not based on scientific knowledge” because it seems gratuitous to mention all TCM. I would support shortening the sentence to "Acupuncture is a pseudoscience.” So in conclusion I disagree with DHD that we should drop pseudoscientific from the lead but I do think we should tighten up the sentence and keep the characterization of quackery in the body. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 15:55, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
Horse Eye Jack, I can confirm that it has been characterised as quackery by Barrett, Ernst, Gorski, Gavura and many others. This is, of course, true of most forms of quackery, not just acupuncture. Guy (help!) 22:26, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
I feel its unnecessary, does pseudoscience not imply everything implied by quackery? It seems like a label without much functional value here. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 00:09, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
Horse Eye Jack, I don't know. As long as we include the pseudomedicine sidebar and the pseudoscience wording that might be enough. I'll wait for others to opine. Guy (help!) 00:12, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
I wouldn't necessarily assume the layreader equates the two (even though they probably should) so I see some functional value to it. The sentence it's in isn't THAT long. I personally would vote to keep it. TylerDurden8823 (talk) 00:26, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
Pseudoscience and quackery are intersecting, but neither is a subset of the other. The former is simply something with the trappings of science that lacks one or more essential elements, while quackery is characterized by dishonest practitioners who claim to possess special knowledge. Someguy1221 (talk) 10:00, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
If you can confirm it's characterised as that by 'many', then provide the verifiable links. All the up-to-date PubMed and Google Scholar searches disagree. I'll also be adding the other sources from Universities and Institutes in the lede, & giving in-text attribution to everything, including those minority viewpoints on pseudoscience and quackery, as should be done on the vast majority of Wiki articles. Because it doesn't matter how much the editors here disagree, WP:RS/AC states that it's only the scientists/scholars/reputable institutes that determine weight & consensus. A very important guideline, or else 'consensus' can just hinge on low-quality opinions from groups of like-minded users (something that seems to happen excessively on this site). So I'll be adding it whenever I feel like it...if it turns into an edit war, there are certainly other measures that can be taken. Donkey Hot-day (talk) 07:59, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
The article does not use the qualifier "many" so you're adding things that aren't there, Donkey. Also, the quackery part is supported by reasonable sources. TylerDurden8823 (talk) 08:45, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
I'm with TylerDurden - no need to change the lede, the quackery characterisation is an important aspect to understanding this subject, it should stay where it is. GirthSummit (blether) 10:19, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Use of biased language overdoing the attempt to a neutral point of view?

I compared the overall stance of this article with that of, e.g., the US NIH here: https://nccih.nih.gov/health/acupuncture/introduction and was surprised that the wikipedia article seems to highlight critical studies more than the NIH, or at least not mention some of those that the NIH article is mentioning, and also using more critical language. I'm not saying the NIH is the ultimate source, but it seems from what superficial comparison of summaries of the state of science I've done that wikipedia is slightly biased? For example, the article starts of with the passive voice "has been characterized as quackery", and I am well aware that the source, quackwatch, cites scientific literature, but is not scientific literature itself. So this (admittedly valuable, but here over-played) blog/site gets to set the tone over a huge amount of studies, some of which do and some of which do not find differences between simulated and/or classic acupuncture and/or no treatment. As another example, I find it a bit misleading to put under the section "Purported scientific basis" the discussion of whether or not some "qi" can be found together with actual scientific findings on adenosine release, which are not a purported basis, but actual outcomes here hidden under a dis-favorable headline. This is another example of what seems to me a slightly dis-favoral bias and tone of writing. I really recommend the NIH article for comparison of just listing neutral facts one after the other. All this is not to say that the article should mirror baseless promises and false projections. But I think it is overdoing its attempt to neutrality? Koalava (talk) 18:50, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Your logic is off.
You compare A and B, find a difference, and conclude that A is biased. See the mistake now?
Not Wikipedia, but the NIH NCCIH is biased, because pro-quackery politicians made it so. --Hob Gadling (talk) 19:02, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
Hob beat me to it, well done. -Roxy, the PROD. . wooF 19:04, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
Although that is not actually the stance of the NIH, but rather of the NCCIH, which is not quite the same thing. Brunton (talk) 12:32, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
Oops. You are completely right. --Hob Gadling (talk) 17:32, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
Worth remembering, for those who don't, that although a part of the NIH, there has in fact been a deliberate effort to insulate the NCCIH from NIH influence. Someguy1221 (talk) 06:48, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
Thanks all for the replies, and apologies for my very late reply in turn. I find the way in which the responses are worded rather insightful, and I note foremost that none of the responses used solid scientific links to substantiate. But let's go through one by one. Hob brings the valid argument that either A or B could be off. But I think the right approach is to challenge both A and B, and it has to be in a language that challenges a bit each of them, and see what comes back. So NCCIH should be challenged by "look, other people have other conclusions from the science, how do you explain that." But this page should be able to bear the same questioning, and so far, the responses aren't very convincing, I must say. So first, Hob and others, is there any published evidence (perhaps even newspaper articles) giving hints that NCCIH is being influenced or driven or biased, other than your saying so? I'm not saying that you're not right, but arguments against NCCIH could pick up the arguments from wikipedia's criticism page on NCCIH, for example, as opposed to the highly dismissive and unsubstantiated tone exhibited by multiple editors of this page, which reflects, in fact, badly on its contents. So I found and read the NCCIH wiki page's criticism section and agree that some of the studies conducted and their criticism are rather disillusioning. So I'm much open to such discussions. At the same time and as another source of concern around this page, it surprises me that there is not a single mention of the NADA approach on this page, which is an extremely widely implemented and hence studied approach (see review articles at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6630623/, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5153313/). Widely studied does not mean yet that it is effective, and digging into the articles linked indeed shows that results are mixed. But if you read the second review article's conclusions, for example, it is far from being aligned with your "quackery" statement, but that it can augment outcomes from concurrent other treatment. So I really think the authors of those very dismissive phrasings are challenged to substantiate, with scientific sources, why the whole article has such a dismissive tone, when there are publications like the cited ones. And your above replies are not yet up to that standard. I saw that another user, whom I don't know and didn't coordinate with, also noticed the quackery language, for example. Unfortunately, like the person who tried to argue with google results, not all such comments are well argued. But I think that wikipedia should reflect the state of the science, and I think this article can do better than it does currently. Looking forward to more solid justifications! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Koalava (talk • contribs) 19:35, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
The two publications you linked are not systematic reviews, just overviews of the subject. The justification is the same as it has been for decades because nothing has meaningfully changed. Nearly all studies of alt-med, including NADA ear acupuncture, are some combination of small, underpowered, insufficiently controlled, and/or insufficiently blinded; with increasing size and quality correlating well with diminished measured benefits. Systematic reviews conclude things along the lines of "results slightly positive but tentative due to study limitations, needs more research." Quacks put out far more literature than skeptics simply because the former have a direct profit motive, so the fact they keep performing studies is irrelevant. The only things that change over time are the specific styles of acupuncture being promoted and the conditions they are claimed to treat. But since the new studies and reviews have the exact same issues that skeptics pointed out regarding older ones, there is no need to update the point of view, as if we're supposed to play a tug of war where the most recent side to put out a paper gets to win. The alleged effectiveness of acupuncture has been thoroughly debunked, and at this point everyone is just repeating themselves. Someguy1221 (talk) 00:24, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Pseudoscience

Acupuncture is not a pseudoscience at all. Thousands of evidence based research papers are published in accredited journal. Now working mechanism of Acupuncture is established as ' neuro humoral ' method. Acupuncture is also indicated in some conventional Medical text books. It is requested to withdraw the term "Pseudoscience". Debabrata Bag (talk) 05:11, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

@Debabrata Bag: this was discussed ad nauseam here. I would suggest searching archives on the top of this page. Thanks. Retimuko (talk) 05:22, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 12 March 2020

Ref 181 (in reference to glaucoma) should be updated, since there is a more recent review: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32032457 73.172.157.167 (talk) 18:42, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

 Not done: Cochrane Reviews are considered leading sources. Updating one source to another just because of time is not in keeping with the medical sources content guideline. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 21:56, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
The OP is referring to an updated Cochrane review though-is there some issue with the new Cochrane review, Eggishorn? I am aware that we don't always go with a newer review simply because it's newer, but we do try to keep things as up-to-date as possible when we can. TylerDurden8823 (talk) 22:56, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
What's needed is for someone to examine the two refs and provide a brief explanation (other than "newer") of why a change would be helpful. Johnuniq (talk) 00:46, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
The current ref is being used to support “no strong evidence of benefit”; the new review doesn’t seem to change that, so it could just be swapped in for the previous one without changing any text. Brunton (talk) 10:43, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Edit request

The current article would position any reasonable person with no prior knowledge on the topic negatively towards acupuncture. As such it is a persuasive article rather then neutral. The wording and unnecessary addition of controversial statements of efficacy (specifically 'pseudoscience'and 'quackery') at the very least and attempt to persuade the reader rather then an attempt to relay information neutrally.

To provide neutral information regarding the topic any discussion of efficacy should reside in the section titled 'Efficacy'. This structure would be congruent with that of the wiki page regarding 'Physical therapy' which features an brief description of the practice and discusses efficacy in section '7'. The prioritised positioning of 'efficacy' in section '2' of the acupuncture wiki page suggest increased emphasis placed on efficacy for acupuncture than physical therapy and suggests further attempts to persuade the reader.


I propose the second sentence in the first paragraph is removed to comply to Wiki's neutral point of view. Change :

"Acupuncture[a] is a form of alternative medicine[3] and a key component of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in which thin needles are inserted into the body.[4] Acupuncture is a pseudoscience[5][6] because the theories and practices of TCM are not based on scientific knowledge, and it has been characterized as quackery.[7] There is a range of acupuncture variants which originated in different philosophies,[8] and techniques vary depending on the country in which it is performed"

to

Acupuncture[a] is a form of alternative medicine[3] and a key component of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in which thin needles are inserted into the body.[4]There is a range of acupuncture variants which originated in different philosophies,[8] and techniques vary depending on the country in which it is performed"

Sam99000 (talk) 03:58, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

 Not done See WP:PSCI, WP:FRINGE/PS, and WP:QUACKS. Tgeorgescu (talk) 05:58, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
I agree with not removing it. It's a well-sourced and accurate description. TylerDurden8823 (talk) 06:06, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
Right. The demand that the reader's opinion about acupuncture should not be influenced by reading the article is unrealistic and runs counter to the very idea of an encyclopedia. I don't know where this weird ideology came from: that informing readers about scientific consensus should be avoided, that readers should not be helped to form an opinion, that facts should be hidden because there is a risk that they could influence the readers' standpoint. I am not aware of any Wikipedia rules that say any of that, or of any philosopher of science who says any of that. Charles Fort did - maybe he is to blame. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:14, 2 June 2020 (UTC)


No data should be hidden and nor should it be unfairly weighted. This is clearly a controversial topic and data can be cherry picked for either point of view. Persuasively presenting a single point of view in no way represents an impartial tone or neutral point of view. Neutral point of view is one of 'wikipedia:five pillars' available here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Five_pillars . In order maintenance the neutral point of view and impartial tone promoted by the encyclopedia itself please reconsider the edit. Sam99000 (talk) 02:58, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

It's not controversial when one is scientifically literate. TylerDurden8823 (talk) 04:01, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
WP:NOTNEUTRAL. Tgeorgescu (talk) 06:13, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
Sam99000, the controversy is between empirically established reality and hucksters. A bit like climate change or evolutionary biology. Guy (help!) 08:13, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
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