The military doesn’t care about how stuff works. They care about results. Acupuncture may or may not work, and if it does it’s probably only the placebo effect, but who cares? If it does what they want it to, why not use it?
The dropout rate in that study was a horrendous 25%, resulting in an editors warning about the conclusions. Three years later the Annals published a more thorough study showing no benefit from acupuntcure that could not be explained via placebo.
What is the closest an army chaplain will get to the ‘frontline’? Will/are they expected to be able to do anything other than ‘godly’ duties? Do they have to know first aid procedures, for instance?
Please note that the type of acupuncture mentioned in this story involves using needles in the ear alone to heal other parts of the body. To me, this is like turning your ear into a voodoo doll.
Medicines that perform no better than placebo aren’t said to work. Outperforming the placebo effect is the standard. Besides, why ‘train’ doctors and medics in expensive and time-consuming needle-poking routines when you can just hand out sugar pills?
Mr. Moto spoke to that. And, yes, chaplains may be clergy, but they’re also expected to be soldiers, sailors or airmen, whatever the case may be.
Chaplains are also able to advocate on behalf of individuals to the chain of command. For example, the parents of a navy buddy of mine were in ill health. My buddy was able to get a hardship discharge because the chaplain was able to get through the chain of command to plead his case. That being said, they are generally nobody’s fools and the ones I’ve known knew when they were being played.
The overall verdict on acupuncture for osteoarthritis is not so good: “For osteoarthritis, reviews since 2006 show a trivial difference between sham and true acupuncture.” The Cochrane organization is in the midst of another literature review on this subject. One problem with summarizing research on acupuncture is that a lot of the studies come out of places where it is a tradition, i.e. China. And it was noted (in the book Snake Oil Science) that studies published in Chinese scientific journals are overwhelmingly (on the order of 100%) favorable towards acupuncture conducted for whatever reason. In western nations, the percentage of positive results falls to 50% or less.
Regarding battlefield acupuncture, here’s a good takedown of its supposed success. It’s been mentioned that having military docs analyzing subjective measures of pain relief may not be the most accurate method of determining outcomes. “You’re feeling better after acupuncture, aren’t you soldier?” “Yessir!!” :dubious: