Talk:Acupuncture

Add UNESCO in the lead

The practice, defined by the article as "quackery", was recognized by UNESCO in 2010: https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/acupuncture-and-moxibustion-of-traditional-chinese-medicine-00425; I know it's inconvenient for you all to add this information in the lead, but it must be added. 217.196.104.215 (talk) 15:35, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

• It was recognised as a cultural phenomenon, not as a legitimate medical practice. It might be worth a sentence in the main part of the article somewhere but I don't think it's important enough to go in the lead. Black Kite (talk) 15:44, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
  • Can you add the correct link in the story paragraph? The current reference (this: https://www.unesco.org/en/culture) doesn't lead to https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/acupuncture-and-moxibustion-of-traditional-chinese-medicine-00425.
  • Since Wikipedia seems to be democratic, it would be better to start an RFC about it. I don't know how to do it, can you do it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.196.104.19 (talk) 15:53, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

    No, see WP:NOTDEMOCRACY. RFCs are for resolving intractable disputes, not for voting on random suggestions. It is mentioned in the history section, which is the proper place for it. I see no reason it should be in the lead. MrOllie (talk) 16:27, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

    Ahhhhh, ok! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.196.104.209 (talk) 16:32, 6 February 2025 (UTC)

this article is based on outdated science

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.

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it is so unfortunate that this exists as truth on wikipedia. Even though the edits of this article are as recent as this year, the authors have failed to incorporate more recent and relevant research on the proven benefits of acupuncture and its use as an allied service in medicine. Wikipedias entire pseudoscience section is grossly outdated as advancements in science continue to expand what we know and what tools we have to treat medical conditions. Good science of acupuncture exist... but i don't have it in me to go on a wiki battle with someone who is clearly out there to skew the story, rather than to provide information and let people make their own choice as to whether its the right path for them. 2001:569:7893:AF00:38DF:835A:4B9C:DB71 (talk) 22:16, 13 February 2025 (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.

Aggregating valid modern sources on acupuncture

I am starting a new topic because two people have been reverting my comments and comments of others on the two below discussions as "closed" despite the two topics below this one not being closed. (The third section indeed has a closed flag.)

I was absolutely stunned to hear the first paragraph of this article quoted from a Google Assistant today, and even more horrified as a decade+ donor to Wikipedia to learn that it was due to it being pulled from Wikipedia. The frame of 'alternative medicine' itself is outdated and problematic -- alternative to what?? It posits western medicine as the dominant norm in a way that is clearly biased. To then escalate this to 'pseudoscience' and 'quackery' is honestly stunning. Shame on all of you who defend this outrageously racist framing. By the policy noted on the talk page this is at most 'questionable science'. A review on the supporting studies from the last ten years shows over and over that the limitations in finding results from RCT have to do with the difficulty of assessing needling in a controlled trial, NOT a dispute that patients find the treatments both effective (for chronic pain in particular) and cost-effective. This is why, as many other users are noting, insurance increasingly covers acupuncture. Lumping it with astrology is absolutely absurd and again quite racist.

Regarding the validity of the NCCIH: The NIH is pretty clear that its institutions are held to the same research standards, but this is a bit silly because what it mostly does with regard to acupuncture is aggregate studies published in other journals. Where should we be aggregating the many more modern studies that contribute to the current expert consensus that more research needs to be done on acupuncture because as the studies improve in methodology results are being seen in specific implementations? Headache for instance is a perfectly legitimate journal: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31872864 The NCCIH article itself has now been marked as in need of updating because of outdated content. The same should be true on this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 3rdspace (talk • contribs) 19:37, 1 March 2025 (UTC)

The vast majority of modern sources on acupuncture come either from China (where negative results of clinical trials essentially do not exist, especially for woo), or Ted Kaptchuk, who has a MASSIVE conflict of interest.

The best scientific evidence says:

• The effects of acupuncture are visible almost exclusively in self-reported subjective measures
• There is no remotely plausible mechanism of action, despite years of attempts to retcon one.
• It does not make any difference where the needles are inserted, or even whether they are inserted.

Acupuncture is one of the unflushable turds of woo, like homeopathy and chiropractic. It doesn't matter how discredited and disproven it is, people will always hold up a thousand poor-quality studies by people with a vested interest in the outcome and assert that they trump the careful and well-constructed work of the infidel. Guy (help! - typo?) 10:53, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

This is another comment that was reverted out for being on the 'closed' discussion that is relevant to the article's condition today:

Agreed with the statement below. There is evidence that Acupuncture has proved to be effective in reducing pain if administered precisely by a professional. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2407:7000:B003:9700:9E7:C:F31D:8B22 (talk) 03:38, 18 February 2025 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 3rdspace (talk • contribs)

Wikipedia follows reliable sources, has a special duty to call out pseudoscience and avoids useless clichéd fluff like FRIN. End of story. Bon courage (talk) 19:43, 1 March 2025 (UTC)

You cannot achieve what you want for this article. Nobody can. Some things can't be changed. tgeorgescu (talk) 19:44, 1 March 2025 (UTC)

Well, it could be changed, if Qi suddenly became a thing and there was any repeatable evidence to prove that location and actual insertion make some objectively testable difference, but of course if that proof existed we would not be having this argument on this page repeatedly for decades. Guy (help! - typo?) 10:54, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

NHS hospitals in UK offered a well-paid job to a Reiki therapist. Not because Reiki is effective, but because it is an easy way to soothe nervous patients. See https://www.nature.com/articles/526295a

More to the point: that is considered deeply unethical. MDs should not offer fake therapies for monetary gain. If they do, then nothing stops a hospital from going rogue and scamming all its patients. tgeorgescu (talk) 16:08, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

About outrageously racist framing: we are equally merciless with chiropractic and homeopathy, which are Western medical pseudosciences. I wouldn't like to be treated according to 17th, 18th, or 19th century Western medicine. The West understood that those were primitive stages of medical science and moved along. China and India failed to understand it. Treating the population with ancient and medieval quackery should never be a reason for national pride. tgeorgescu (talk) 17:05, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

Indeed it's a kind of racism of low expectations to think that this nonsense should be indulged because it's associated with certain peoples (e.g. "they don't get real science, so let's allow them this woowoo ...") Bon courage (talk) 18:00, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

Yup, Western MDs recognized that old Western approaches were wrong, and were prepared to learn from their own mistakes. TCM and Ayurveda are not doing that.

The claims that Ayurveda and TCM are right are rhetoric-based, not fact-based; they are divorced from the objective reality. tgeorgescu (talk) 19:03, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

Having not received an answer to my question about where we should be aggregating more modern evidence, I am appending it here. I would also lodge my objection to the preponderance of blog sources listed as reference in the article associated with the same community (New England Skeptics Society), which seem to be cited with a biased level of frequency (number of times a single author is cited, who is a member of that society and blog author). I will continue adding sources here and signing my additions.

Heterogeneity has been specifically analyzed using meta-regression and found that variables like needle location/depth could explain heterogeneity for specific conditions. (Rebuts claim that "acupuncturists can't agree on acupuncture points" and that sham comparisons are invalid.) "SA type did not appear to be related to the estimated effect of real acupuncture." This source also finds moderate effect on musculoskeletal pain with systematic methodology and large sample size.

Adenosine signaling has been specifically identified and studied in humans as progress toward a biochemical mechanism for analgesic effect of acupuncture. (Efficacy on pain relief is the emerging area that is finding increasing evidence.)

"There is evidence for the therapeutic effects of acupuncture for the management of cancer-related fatigue, chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting and leucopenia in patients with cancer." ... "Because acupuncture appears to be relatively safe, it could be considered as a complementary form of palliative care for cancer, especially for clinical problems for which conventional care options are limited."

Acupuncture activates the salience network (insula, anterior cingulate cortex) and deactivates the default mode network (medial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex), which are known to be involved in pain processing and self-awareness. (Article also comments on real vs sham and validity of this study. Also addresses neurological mechanism responding to critiques of efficacy of visualization of acupuncture following acupuncture therapy.)

I am requesting help integrating these sources into the main article and continuing my argument that the last sentence in the first paragraph of the lede is wildly incorrect. It is fair to critique many claims about acupuncture; it is not fair to categorize it as quackery (proven wrong claims) vs borderlands (mechanisms being pursued, pain relief effects proven with increasing robustness). 3rdspace (talk) 04:14, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

How can we change Wikipedia's gross mischaracterization of acupuncture as "quackery" when there are thousands of double-blind RCTs proving its efficacy? The fact that the first paragraph on acupuncture has not changed decreases validity of Wikipedia as a trusted source. 172.250.1.125 (talk) 19:35, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

WP:LUNATICS. tgeorgescu (talk) 19:50, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

Agreed. 3rdspace (talk) 20:21, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

References

None of those sources are suitable WP:MEDRS, and Chinese research in a dodgy journal like Scientific Reports are at the very opposite end of what is required here. Wikipedia uses reliable sources to report on this quackery, it is not a venue for spreading the quackery itself. Bon courage (talk) 06:50, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

Objectively showing that acupuncture is effective would be rewarded with a Nobel Prize. Since that has not happened, there is no reason to assume it is. E.g., the discovery of artemisinin was rewarded with a Nobel. tgeorgescu (talk) 17:10, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

Scientific Reports is not a reliable source? It has an impact factor of 3.8 and is published by Nature. The articles for covid-19, parkinson's disease, diabetes, and Alzheimer's disease all cite Scientific Reports. Please explain.

Dismissing Chinese research that has been peer reviewed in top western medical journals is an example of the racism I am talking about, as are the miscellaneous epithets fulminated in above discussions. There is a clear double standard. 3rdspace (talk) 20:20, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

WP:PRIMARY medical studies get knee-jerk rejected, regardless of race. Please read WP:MEDRS for learning what is acceptable for making medical claims.

See Hall, Harriet (2023). Hupp, Stephen; Santa Maria, Cara L. (eds.). Pseudoscience in Therapy: A Skeptical Field Guide. Cambridge University Press. p. 112. ISBN 978-1-316-51922-6. Retrieved 8 March 2025. tgeorgescu (talk) 20:26, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

Appreciate this comment, I reviewed MEDRS but am still trying to understand it. I'm assembling sources that meet MEDRS guidelines below.

It's funny, I used to affiliate with the skeptic community, but have found it to have completely lost the plot for reasons thoroughly demonstrated in the archives of this talk page. I no longer find any skeptic sources credible personally. Sam Harris seems to recently be regaining some of his sanity but it's been a disappointing decade for that community. 3rdspace (talk) 21:08, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

As I told you, the skeptical POV is inherently NPOV in matters of science and medicine.

You might personally disagree with this, but as long as the Wikipedia Community agrees with it, you cannot change it, and your efforts to change this article will fail. tgeorgescu (talk) 21:35, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

Sam Harris was never a part of the skeptical community, and he has no bearing on improving this article. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:21, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

Scientific reports is the journal that published an article claiming that using a cell phone would make you grow a horn on the back of your neck. MrOllie (talk) 20:27, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

See also Naudet, Florian; Falissard, Bruno; Boussageon, Rémy; Healy, David (2015). "Has evidence-based medicine left quackery behind?" (PDF). Internal and Emergency Medicine. 10 (5): 631–634. doi:10.1007/s11739-015-1227-3. ISSN 1970-9366. PMID 25828467. S2CID 20697592. Treatments such as relaxation techniques, chiropractic, therapeutic massage, special diets, megavitamins, acupuncture, naturopathy, homeopathy, hypnosis and psychoanalysis are often considered as pseudoscience or quackery with no credible or respectable place in medicine, because in evaluation they have not been shown to work

Scientific Reports are basically papers rejected by Nature. tgeorgescu (talk) 20:32, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

3rdspace: it's probably time for you to fuck off with all these "racist" WP:ASPERSIONS in service of your POV-pushing. Bottom line, Wikipedia isn't going to use old crappy sources to undercut up-to-date reliable ones. Bon courage (talk) 20:35, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

I didn't know we could tell each other to fuck off within Wikipedia etiquette guidelines! Noted. Thank you for your clearly unbiased take. 3rdspace (talk) 21:04, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

You should not use the accusation of racism lightly. That is a clear violation of Wikipedia etiquette guidelines. Especially after you got notified of contentious topics, according to WP:ARBPS and WP:ARBCAM. tgeorgescu (talk) 21:08, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

It's not within etiquette guidelines at all, but I can assure you that no administrator is going to sanction someone who tells another editor to fuck off, if that editor has been accusing them of racism with no evidence whatsoever. As was pointed out above, Western pseudosciences such as homeopathy or chiropractic are treated in exactly the same way here. Black Kite (talk) 21:11, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

Treating acupuncture like homeopathy and chiropractic in the face of copious MEDRS-approved sources finding efficacy is exactly the problem. 3rdspace (talk) 21:49, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

Oh, chiropractic! A pseudoscience never comes alone. tgeorgescu (talk) 21:58, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

Ah, it's the "yes, the other pseudosciences are pseudosciences, but this one is not" stance. We get that often too.

If you do not understand why MEDRS is the way it is, don't just randomly invent bad insulting explanations for why people disagree with you ("they are racist"). Instead, try to actually understand their actual reasoning. Otherwise, meaningful discussions with you are impossible and "fuck off" is the correct response. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:21, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

I am refraining from commenting on this page because tgeorgescu has initiated an arbcom process, but since you've replied to three of my messages, Hob: "they are racist" is misquoting me. The comment "outrageously racist framing" can be construed as inflammatory but it is a comment on the FRAMING, not the people. My second invocation of racism also referred to a behavior, not editors ("Dismissing Chinese research that has been peer reviewed in top western medical journals is an example of the racism"), and would challenge anyone to describe how such behavior would not be racial bias. I have not called anyone a racist here. And I note sensitivity because those of us who encounter racism on a daily basis by necessity do not perceive racism to be that big of a deal or we couldn't function. This is the most I have ever engaged with wikipedia and may remain so, but I have since learned to refer to this in the context of systemic bias instead of racism, even though I personally would respond with concerned curiosity if anyone accused me of being racist.

My initial comment was surely an overly emotional response to hearing a product I am partly responsible for uttering this very incorrect and hurtful statement, and I am in the process of understanding how to revise it. Not because I think it is untrue (though I am convinced it is more than JUST racial bias, and is predominantly another kind of bias peculiar to wikipedia and a small online community), but because it upset people counterproductively. 3rdspace (talk) 19:46, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

"Dismissing Chinese research that has been peer reviewed in top western medical journals is an example of the racism", or short: "Dismissing [acupuncture] is racism". This is just bullshit, and of course it is no different from calling the people who disagree with you "racist". We have good reasons to dismiss that shite, and those reasons are completely unrelated to racism - a distinction easily spotted because they are the same reasons why we reject homeopathy (which has pretty much the same type of mountain of bad evidence behind it as acupuncture does; you are just obviously familiar with the acupuncture mountain but not the homeopathy mountain). You are accusing people of imaginary character traits because you have no actual good reasoning you could use, and the only result of that bad reasoning is that you are not taken seriously. Counterproductively. --Hob Gadling (talk) 21:14, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

I think because you are upset you are again extrapolating something I am saying into something I'm not saying. This thread is specifically about Bon Courage's comment "Chinese research in a dodgy journal like Scientific Reports " and my comment on bias exclusively refers to this statement, not to acupuncture as a whole, which is a vastly larger topic. The 'Chinese' here is being used pejoratively and combined with an untrue statement; Scientific Reports is clearly not 'dodgy' or it wouldn't be used as a source on several other medical articles. Your comment calling out that the problem was they were primary sources was much clearer and more helpful to me, incidentally. But that doesn't change SR's fundamental reliability. Part of the consistent problem I have had here is that there is a huge mishmash of arguments. I'm not even clear that there is a consistent definition of what acupuncture is in these conversations (and in the article). That is why I previously descended into the primary research. This is relevant because the SRs fail because they blend good lines of research with bad ones. Acupuncture is a mainstream medical practice now because medicine, inclusive of insurance companies, isolates effect studies to adjunctive therapies for pain relief. Again, though, I am trying to withdraw from this, but feel I need to reply when you mischaracterize what I'm saying. I hope you are not doing it on purpose. 3rdspace (talk) 23:21, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

I think this dispute is becoming counterproductive, especially in light of the WP:AE complaint that is ongoing, so I'd like to see if I can say a few things that might help wrap up this discussion. 3rdspace, as someone who has long edited in this contentious topic area, I've come to understand the association of "Chinese" in these discussions to refer to the existence in mainland China of (typically government-sponsored) institutions that are dedicated to gaining the acceptance (especially in the West) of practices that have arisen from historical Chinese cultural traditions, including those, like acupuncture, that are considered unscientific outside of the East. One can justify the use of such health practices on the basis of them being widely used and accepted by many people (including insurance companies), or alternatively, on the basis of mainstream scientific evidence. The consensus at Wikipedia, and reflected in such guidelines as WP:MEDRS, is that Wikipedia relies on science, rather than popularity, for our health-related content, and furthermore, on "the preponderance of reliable sources", as opposed to just one or a few outlier sources that might have been chosen to support a point. That's what's going on here. Editors aren't being "racist" when referring to Chinese sources as less reliable. It isn't a commentary on the people or the culture, but on certain practices that underlie some publications. These issues come up very, very frequently on talk pages like this one, and it gets very exhausting for long-time editors to keep explaining the same things over and over again. In this case, the bottom line is that the preponderance of reliable sources tell us that there isn't any scientific evidence for the medical effectiveness of acupuncture (other than a placebo effect), no matter how many good-faith people may swear by it. Your best bet really is to drop out of this discussion and let it come to a close, and not worry about what some other editors may think of you. I remember from when I was an inexperienced editor that it can be very difficult to do that, so I understand how you feel. But this is only a website, and other editors are only random people who participate here, so you shouldn't feel bad about just chalking this up to experience and moving on. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:44, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

Exactly, and it isn't just Chinese research into TCM which is known to be problematic; other fields (Russian neuroscience e.g.) have the same issue, and it's not unlikely that soon we'll be adding American govt-funded research into vaccines/altmed to the list too. Bon courage (talk) 06:00, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

I think I see a systematic problem with this article that comes down to it being primarily categorized in terms of what western science thinks of it at all. That is going to piss you all off, but bluntly, things that predate the scientific method should not be led with what western science thinks of them.

The categorization of pseudoscience I continue to disagree with due to the underspecification of pseudoscience as noted below, and the dogged adherence to a policy that is nearly twenty years old -- but it seems to me that you all could avoid an awful lot of grief if the article were divided into a lead, followed by 'acupuncture as cultural practice' (see UNESCO comment above), 'acupuncture as medicine' (it is mainstream medical practice), and 'acupuncture as science' which absolutely does deserve to be treated and any pseudoscience designation belongs there. Leading with the western science viewpoint sure smells like your own WP:RGW.

In the meantime arguments go round and round because contradictory statements are thrown such as it's not effective beyond placebo which elicits evidence that it is (which is easy to find) and yet also efficacy has nothing to do with whether it's pseudoscience which makes absolutely no sense. Further, basic review of MEDRS leads with clinical practice guidelines, and clinical practice guidelines conditionally support acupuncture in medical treatment. Insisting on leading with a pseudoscience designation is asking for this constant shitstorm, and I do now genuinely feel bad for the exhaustion you all seem to operate under.

Finally, while I do appreciate your empathy, Tryptofish, I am going to try to say this as gently as I can: generalizing a pattern observed elsewhere onto unexamined examples in cases of ethnicity and national origin is ethnic bias. Had Bon Courage validated that those studies were state-sponsored and said so, that would be commenting on the specific. If they had even said likely PRC-sponsored research that too would have been more defensible. But that is not what they said. And I have to wonder, if there were more representation from Chinese editors here if such generalizations would be so carelessly tossed around, and the seeming absence of such voices in the guardianship of a practice as culturally important as this one is telling on its own.

I do understand now that you all are tired of hearing these things. I think there are better ways of dealing with them that do not compromise the representation of western scientific consensus.

And with that I will withdraw, and remain disappointed in Wikipedia for this, and concerned for the damage that this does to the collective effort. For what it's worth, I do apologize for frustrating you all, and I understand better now much of the thrash in the posts above.

˜˜˜˜ 3rdspace (talk) 06:29, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

Had Bon Courage validated ← The assumption of bad faith continues. It is good for the Project you are leaving this topic. Bon courage (talk) 07:14, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

There is no western science. There is science, and if you need to specify, there is western pseudoscience and eastern pseudoscience. "Western science" is just framing from eastern pseudoscientists. Another thing we have to explain again and again. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:11, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

According to organized skepticism, in science you have to convince the skeptics. If you fail to convince the bulk of scientific skeptics, your hypothesis is considered WP:CB. Even Einstein knew fairly well that the fate of the theory of relativity gets decided by scientific skeptics, and appeals to popular opinion or crying racist are WP:CB. tgeorgescu (talk) 20:51, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

Since you all seem sensitive about racial bias, how would you prefer I describe the bias demonstrated in Scientific Reports being acceptable RS for other Wikipedia articles and not this one? 3rdspace (talk) 21:11, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

As I told you, my views about abortion and health effects of salt are WP:FRINGE. The only difference is that I fully understand it, therefore I'm not trolling the talk pages of those articles. tgeorgescu (talk) 21:41, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

Re: racial bias, Your best option at this point is to consider the Law of holes. MrOllie (talk) 21:43, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

Do you have an answer as to why Scientific Reports is acceptable in those five other medical Wikipedia articles, but not acceptable here? The source is either reliable or it isn't. I have provided sources from JAMA, Cochrane, Lancet, and the Journal of Pain, but I also maintain that in the specific contexts above Sci Rep should be considered reliable as well in the emerging areas of immunological and neurological mechanism definition. 3rdspace (talk) 22:37, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

Yes, we do, and you were already given it immediately after you linked those articles. WP:PRIMARY medical studies get knee-jerk rejected, regardless of race. --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:21, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

Further sources (with bonus minimal melanin):

A 2009 update to a Cochrane Library review showed that consistent evidence that acupuncture "at least as effective as, or possibly more effective than, prophylactic drug treatment, and has fewer adverse effects" in the treatment of migraine. A further 2016 update demonstrated a small effect over sham treatment, and reproduced evidence that "acupuncture may be at least similarly effective as treatment with prophylactic drugs".

A JAMA-published randomized clinical trial by Hershman et al. found that acupuncture produced a statistically significant reduction in aromatase inhibitor-related joint pain in breast cancer patients compared to both sham acupuncture and waitlist controls.

A meta-analysis in the Journal of Pain, examining data from 39 trials with over 20,000 patients, found that acupuncture produced statistically significant benefits for chronic pain conditions that persisted over time and could not be explained solely by placebo effects. The magnitude of effect (approximately 0.5 standard deviations versus no acupuncture and 0.2 standard deviations versus sham acupuncture) represents a meaningful clinical difference, particularly for chronic pain conditions that are often difficult to treat.

A Lancet-published randomized trial by Witt et al. found that acupuncture significantly improved pain and joint function in knee osteoarthritis patients compared to both minimal acupuncture and no treatment after 8 weeks.

3rdspace (talk) 21:47, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

References

As I entered inside the article, systematic reviews don't agree among themseles that acupuncture is effective for any pain, except for neck pain. And that is a strong reason for believing that such results are spurious. tgeorgescu (talk) 21:55, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

Yup. Nothing suitable here, all out-of-date and/old or primary (The OP has evidently either not read or not understood WP:MEDRS). Wikipedia is not going to undercut up-to-date science to push a WP:PROFRINGE POV. Bon courage (talk) 21:56, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

Again, the difference between you and me is that I don't complain I'm bullied by an evil conspiracy of racists/Satanists/whatever at abortion and health effects of salt. tgeorgescu (talk) 22:22, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

Why do you keep making personal comments while complaining that I'm doing the same? 3rdspace (talk) 22:30, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

Are you able to show a more recent source that refutes the findings for migraine? I cannot find any systematic review stronger than the 2016 Cochrane update. 3rdspace (talk) 22:32, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

The Ernst review already cited in the article. Various papers from Vickers have been discussed quite a bit in the talk page archives. You should probably read those discussions rather than starting that over again, you're not likely to get any further than the last few go rounds. MrOllie (talk) 22:40, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

Because this is a talk page, I'm trying to understand why, given that the 2022 review (which includes Linde) finds moderate certainty results for migraine and tension headaches, chronic fatigue syndrome, and high certainty effect results for fibromyalgia and shoulder pain -- why is this cited under the phrase "The conclusions of trials and systematic reviews of acupuncture generally provide no good evidence of benefits, which suggests that it is not an effective method of healthcare."? This is not correct.

When that same study concludes "In this study, the number of conditions for which authors of systematic reviews concluded that there was at least moderate-certainty evidence regarding health outcome associations of acupuncture was modest. Most of these involved comparisons of acupuncture with sham or control acupuncture, and then mostly for painful conditions." -- it's saying that a modest number of systematic reviews find at least moderate-certainty evidence for acupuncture's efficacy, particularly for pain. But that's not what the wikipedia article says.

I'm trying to isolate individual applications for which significant evidence exists. Commenters have variously replied "only shoulder pain", "only neck pain", etc. If we agree that moderate certainty evidence exists for its efficacy in migraine (and that the Linde article cited in Ernst is a reliable source, which has more fine-grained detail about the efficacy in migraine -- importantly that it is as effective as existing preventative treatments, AND better tolerated by patients with fewer adverse effects), then I am more than pleased. Do we agree on this? 3rdspace (talk) 23:34, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

The JAMA review is well summarised (as has been discussed in-depth previously). A more recent systematic review (PMID:39287298) has rather degraded the should pain stuff though, so we could update the article with that. Bon courage (talk) 23:53, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

The claims of systematic reviews that acupuncture is effective for specific conditions can be explained as due to mere randomness. As stated before, systematic reviews of acupuncture disagree about the conditions for which it is effective all over the place. This year it is effective for shoulder pain, two years later it isn't. tgeorgescu (talk) 00:01, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

Quite. As the authors write,

Despite the large literature on acupuncture, most reviews concluded that their confidence in the effect was limited

If there was a real signal in the noise, strong evidence would have emerged from the 1000s of studies undertaken. This is all well explained by the WP:SBM commentary we cite alongside. Bon courage (talk) 00:04, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

Since we don't want to play whack-a-mole with conditions for which acupuncture is effective, we have to say outright that acupuncture is both a pseudoscience and quackery. tgeorgescu (talk) 01:14, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

Whack-a-mole is a good way to put it. When a pseudoscience has as much backing as acupuncture, it may fall prey to an even higher-level Texas sharpshooter fallacy than usual because there are even systematic reviews that say "maybe it works for this disease". --Hob Gadling (talk) 08:21, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

Have you even read the article? We cite PMID:36416820 which is a 2022 review of reviews in JAMA. It's odd that in a section supposedly about "valid modern sources" all the sources presented so far are unreliable and/or older than the high-quality sources the article is currently using. Bon courage (talk) 22:45, 8 March 2025 (UTC); expanded 08:23, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

A bit of history

If we go back a few years to then end of 2022, the article at that time[1] had long suffered from having a huge mass of sources for efficacy making for an intractable (and not properly maintained) patchwork of things that acupuncture did/not/maybe worked for. Wikipedia is meant to be a summary and the appearance of the 2022 JAMA review of reviews allows for a proper summary saying that there is little strong evidence acupuncture is effective for anything much. The WP:SBM source alongside explains how this pattern is characteristic of ineffective pseudosciences (and acupuncture is a known pseudoscience per the impeccable sourcing we have on this). I think at this point WP:ECREE applies and any statement that acupuncture definitely 'works' would need some super-strength WP:MEDRS sourcing saying just that (not just 'promising', 'suggestive', 'needs more research' etc.). Bon courage (talk) 08:42, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

Tend to agree on your 'super WP:MEDRS' point. With great respect though, Im not sure anyone's too worried about not being able to say "acupuncture definitely works" on the main page. Rather, the central issue is the 2nd line of lede, which is understandably highly provocative to some, i.e. Acupuncture is a pseudoscience; the theories and practices of TCM are not based on scientific knowledge, and it has been characterized as quackery

I just checked on Google Assist here in the UK, and the app reads that sentence out verbatim when you say "Hey Google, tell me about acupuncture." Granted, it's unclear it's as a big of a problem as 3rdspace thinks. This is not too deny the sentence is likely having adverse effects on two predominantly female groups. 1) TCM practitioners, many of whom are highly virtuous and hard working, yet still facing significant economic pressure. 2) Those suffering from various conditions best alleviated by acupuncture. Still, it would be unexpected if 3rdspace isn't soon able to get Google to bring GA into alignment with the big public AIs in preferencing more mainstream sources. If any are interested, I'd be happy to list other reasons why the problematic sentence in the lede is unlikely to be having that big an impact, and that on balance it would likely do more than harm than good to try to force a change against the wish of skeptics.

Having said all this I wonder if it might be agreeable to all here to change the 2nd sentence to something a little less provocative, like maybe in this example? FeydHuxtable (talk) 13:35, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

What you want is unachievable. I won't explain why because I will get accused of WP:BLUDGEONING. tgeorgescu (talk) 14:20, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

Change the sentence to make it less provocative, I'll look at WP:LESSPROVOCATIVE shall I? - Roxy the dog 14:21, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

The pseudoscience question is distinct from the efficacy question. We need high-quality sources which specifically consider the pseudoscience (or not) question. Fortunately we have those, and follow them faithfully. That is job done so far as Wikipedia editing is concerned, however much special pleading editors may entertain. Bon courage (talk) 14:47, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

Reading the sources for the contentious sentence I can certainly see why some may feel that way about it. Perhaps keeping the sentence but moving it down into the body is the win - win play?

Not sure if y'all are fellow Europeans. If so that might explain why you might not be so worried about the possible racist interpretation. For over 5 years before the 'DeepSeek moment' made it undeniable, it's been clear to the more insightful European business leaders that the old trope of Chinese as 'cheap imitators' is outdated, that just as some other East Asians have been been doing for more than a decade, the Chinese are starting to perform better than us across a range of high value sectors. But the picture's rather different across the pond. Rather than being grateful to the Chinese for offering opportunities to raise our game, some in the US have quite different emotional responses. As well as such systemic bias concerns, there's arguably the WP:astonish violation in having such a strong anti-acupuncture statement so prominently in the lede, considering it's available at many top academic medical centers in the United States ( source) and even more popular across Europe. This said, if you remain convinced the 'pseudoscience question' trumps such concerns, I guess that's a valid perspective. FeydHuxtable (talk) 16:17, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia is based on the knowledge in high-quality sources. That's really all there is to it. Bon courage (talk) 16:22, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

Not sure if you've noticed, all but one of 8 sources for the contentious sentence are over a decade old, and generally by quite obscure authors. Here's a scholarly source published in the last week finding they did not observe consensus on the “Pseudoscientific” status of Acupuncture. There's many thousands of quality WP:RS where that came from mate. Still, I see the one source that's less than 10 years old is by Gorski, aka Orac. So if you're still not finding my input helpful here, then as a big Blake's 7 fan, I'm going to call this one to team skeptic! (just regarding my input of course) FeydHuxtable (talk) 16:51, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

A survey of philosophers isn't a particularly good source on whether a medical topic constitutes pseudoscience. MrOllie (talk) 17:23, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

It's quite an interesting piece of primary research, but all it really shows is that one haphazard (their word) sample of philosophers doesn't prove very effective at identifying pseudoscience in general. It's not really on-topic for this article where we have expert publications directly considering the matter. Bon courage (talk) 18:50, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

The status of acupuncture has not changed in the last ten years. It's like the shape of the Earth, old sources are good enough. --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:40, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

Across the project, on woo subjects, we label pseudoscience as such, and prominently to boot. It's part of our remit. You will find equivalent statements in most woo topics. - Roxy the dog 16:37, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

Even if other editors are European, I'm American (or, as I'm fond of saying, half American and half human), and I'm not seeing it as relevant, whether or not something is contentious. Science is decided scientifically, not by a popular vote, and Wikipedia reports what the science says, when writing about medical topics. It's not a question of philosophy, or of cultural perceptions. There is no known scientific underpinning for acupuncture, other than the placebo effect. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:49, 9 March 2025 (UTC)