We all know that Americans are kind of the laughing stock when it comes to weird conspiracies and dangerous beliefs (though it's obviously everywhere), from cancer-causing phones to deadly aluminium in vaccines on a flat earth. But I noticed a lot of the Chinese pseudosciences aren't very widely addressed on Steemit, and since I live here, who better to debunk than yours truly?

Now, acupuncture is a good one to start with because not only is it a classic method to treat literally everything, but it's largely accepted and widespread across the world. It's also fake and definitely doesn't work.

So for this series, we're going to come across the placebo effect quite a lot, the healing ability from a psychological belief that something works. This is very real and sometimes quite powerful, but in the cases where medicine used is a placebo effect, it's not a justification to continue using it, because more often than not the practice is also quite dangerous. That being said, never underestimate the power of placebo.

So first, let's take a look at the false history behind acupuncture.

History

China loves to romanticize its history, often claiming that China on the whole has 5,000 years of connected history and culture. This in itself is false, with the evidence going, at most, back 3,000 years, and even then there are some speculative claims, with just perhaps a small town here, a disconnected tribe there. But nonetheless, Acupuncture is often claimed to have been around for 5,000 years, since the very dawn of Chinese history.

There's no evidence for this, obviously. The closest evidence comes is a European mummy, Otzi the Iceman 5,000 years ago, which had some tattoos that happened to be in the same location as some Qi points used in acupuncture. If this was true, which let's face it, is speculative at best, it's not exactly confirmation that it's an effective medicine. Likewise, the 'evidence' in the Chinese medical book 黄帝内经, Huangdi Neijing, shows that there are puncture marks in specimens from the Neolithic era, which could just as easily be efforts to burst pus-filled growths from disease and infection.

To be honest, there was no real mention of acupuncture the way we know it (with precise points around the body being noted) until around 100BC, barely 2,000 years ago. That's still pretty old, but it didn't even remain popular, in persistent decline for 1,000 years, until the Mao era.

The Death of Acupuncture

Around 1822, A court commission of specialists, physicians and scholars collectively and carefully decided - note, 200 years ago! - that it had no medical value and was eventually banned by 道光帝, Emperor Dao Guang. We don't know the true details of what was discussed, but we can say that there was no outcry, being barely practiced or heard about by this point anyway, and it was called out as a 'lost tradition' by 徐大椿, *Xu Dachun*, some 80 years prior to the ban.

In fact, there is no proof that acupuncture was widely used at all, with scant evidence and severe lack of mentions of it throughout the time of 400 emperors. You see, the Chinese knew what they were doing back then more than we give them credit for.

The 鹽鐵論, or the Yan Tie Lun, a state policy debate in imperial courts, noted back in 81BC that acupuncture practitioners:

...stab in their needles at random, without the least beneficial influence on the illness, and only succeed in injuring the flesh and the muscles

Well, that sounds an awful lot like what modern researchers conclude after 3,000 trials! (more on that in part 2). So, after 1822, Acupuncture was dead.

Enter 毛泽东, Mao Zedong

Fast forward to 1949, an good old Mao gained power and became the most powerful (and brutal) leader in Chinese history (probably). With nothing but politics in mind, Mao united Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), reviving it into its new form.

Now, it should be well known that Mao's physician, 李志绥, Li Zhisui was 'baffled' by TCM and the unfounded relation between the five elements. Not only that, but a conversation between him and Mao showed that Mao himself didn't believe in it either:

Even though I believe we should promote Chinese medicine, I personally do not believe in it. I don’t take Chinese medicine - Mao Zedong

His support was, therefore, entirely political. In a speech in 1950, Mao explains that, with 500 million citizens sick and in need of medical help, there simply wasn't enough supply of trained professionals and useful western medicine. With no other choice at hand, 'peasants' had to rely on TCM, regardless of its ineffectiveness, and so Mao was there to unite and support it.

With a romanticized view of a mysterious, ancient China, the western world also fell into the propaganda trap. Any skeptic was, naturally, shot down as some kind of racist, or an ignorant fool, foolishly applying western thought to Chinese medicine, which somehow is entirely unique among the Universe.

And so here we are, with TCM spread all over the world, from South Korea to Finland, USA to Australia, even though we've known, for literally thousands of years, that it's nonsense. Enjoy the pinpricks, cause that's all they are.

Still not convinced? In part 2 I'll dig into the actual 'science' of it all, and see if practitioners actually have any ground to stand on (spoiler: nope).

Thanks for reading! If you want to be a part of the science community on steemit, join the steemstem group on steemit.chat!

Image sources CC0 usage

Sources

Huangdi Neijing
Acupuncture Wiki
Yan Tie Lun
Emperor Daoguang
Importance of acupuncture in history
TCM Origins