Every month or so a new story attempting to debunk acupuncture makes the rounds on the Internet. I saw this story in an obscure journal yesterday, now it’s in the Daily Mail, a UK publication. I expect it to be in Time or Newsweek, or USA Today soon. It’s not a case of acupuncture malpractice, but journalistic malpractice: this acupuncture case is from South Korea, not the U.S., nor the U.K. Students in the U.S. attending accredited schools of Oriental Medicine do NOT learn gold needle threading nor is gold threading practiced in the U.S. Research reveals that acupuncture does indeed relieve pain and inflammation, and scrolling through my blog, you will find articles linking to all sorts of studies on the benefits of acupuncture. Licensed acupuncturists in Nevada have a minimum of 4 years/3,000 hours of graduate education and training and are regulated by the Nevada Board or Oriental Medicine and adhere to safe needling practices. Acupuncture is a safe, regulated medical practice in Nevada, and journalists who wish to impugn it are hard pressed to find ANY cases in the U.S. resulting in injury to patients. Hence, an obscure case from South Korea makes its way around the blogosphere to discredit the beneficial medicine 20,000 acupuncturists practice around America.
Read the article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2539757/X-ray-reveals-hundreds-gold-NEEDLES-womans-knees-acupuncture-arthritis.html