Acupuncture: people will believe anything

Heres a tip for dealing with your liberal white friends: if you'd like to convince them of the efficacy of a practice tie it to the mystical land of Asia. Liberals will buy into ANY health practice as long as it comes from the orient, and can be represented with Chinese characters. Bonus points are awarded if the practice is thousands of years old because surely anything thats been around forever must be true!

A recent article posted in the "Archives of Internal Medicine" describes the results of a double-blind study comparing the effectiveness of 'expertly' applied acupuncture with proper needles to acupuncture with randomly applied toothpicks. I'm pleased to see that the media has picked up on the study even though the findings, that acupuncture is no more effective than randomly being poked with toothpicks, isn't surprising.

Though cynical by nature I am still endlessly surprised at the types of quackery people will throw their money at in the name of health, as if the human body was some kind of mysterious entity that must be assuaged by magic. If I was smart I would have gotten involved with the whole organic-wholistic-alternative health movement a longtime ago and would be raking in the big bucks now. But no, I had to work in science. TONS of money in that decision...