The answer is no. Of course I think it is POSSIBLE to test the effects of acupuncture by what you call scientific means, and I also think that it SHOULD be done, because I think if it WOULD be properly done, even western medicine would accept that acupuncture IS an effective way to treat very many kinds of conditions. Not all, obviously, but neither is biomedicine effective therapy to every condition.
Pleased? If I were of similar mind set as you, I could also dig out studies that HAVE proven acupuncture effective. Because studies that even you might accept HAVE been done, albeit very few of them. I believe the attitude within the biomedical faculty is slowly changing, and more open-minded interest toward alternative therapies will lead to more unbiased research. But the process is slow.
To my knowledge, there is also such a pilot project going on in one of the university hospitals/Faculty of Medicine in Finland (in Kuopio, I think), where the aim is to set up a large scale research project to test various aspects of acupuncture by standards of western science, or what you call simply Science.
Probably similar research is being carried out elsewhere.
The largest corpus of clinical experience with acupuncture is obviously from China, as there acupuncture is one form of treatment included in public health care, and used also in treating serious conditions such as paralysis, and as anaesthetic in operations etc, not just an incompetent doctor or physiotherapist poking needles here and there to relax your muscles or cure your headache, like in Western countries is commonly done.
What I would like to see are studies that indeed concentrate on the effects. E.g. from China it should be easy to collect a large enough amount of data in treating various diseases and pathogenic conditions treated (successfully) with acupuncture, to prove it does indeed work.
To my knowledge also some animal testing has been done with acupuncture, with similar results as in humans, thus excluding an explanation solely based on placebo effect.
But as I said, I don't NEED you to believe or "know" that acupuncture is effective. But I am happy if you are interested and open minded. I still don't want to take on the task of PROVING you anything. If I find relevant studies, I'll send the links your way.
I know you always want scientific proof, statistics etc. I understand that, and you are free to feel that way. For me it is enough proof what I have experienced myself, and what at least 30 people I personally know have reported. E.g. with migraine. If acupuncture is not effective, or is based on more or less just placebo effect, how do you explain at least 10 people I personally know (have to deduct those ten people cannot be the only ones to which this applies, only they are those I personally know), have stopped having migraines completely after having suffered from it for decades? This after visiting the acupuncturist 3-6 times. And the migraines never returned? Would be a rather strange coincidence, if for all of them it just happened to go away for some natural reason right at the time they were treated by acupuncture.
And I know many other stories like this. On many different conditions, including difficult hereditary degenerative conditions. When those patients have gone to their doctor after acupuncture, the doctor has been baffled by the sudden improvement.
Of course my friends and acquaintances do not make a scientifically reliable statistic, but I am sure such a thing could be compiled if there was interest to do so. Do you not understand that a lot of medical research is also based on money and other interests, and not only done based on pure scientific interest or out of interest to help people? In whose interest is it to further research on acupuncture? Not in the interest of people with money.
Besides its other benefits (such that it is chemical free for example, so it does not further stress the liver and other organs of an already sick person), acupuncture is also a very cheap method of treatment. With this I do not mean it is necessarily cheap for a patient in the West, as for acupuncture you do not get any compensation from public health care funds etc, and the acupuncturists also have to make a living, while being heavily taxed. I mean to say that the method itself is dirt cheap: no expensive meds or equipment involved. Obviously the practitioner needs to be well trained, and that is an expense, but currently here only to him or herself, as the state pays nothing for it. My point is, that acupuncture (like some other traditional, effective treatments) would also be a very good supplemental kind of health care in all developing countries, that simply cannot afford to offer high standard western style health care to their people. But, in general, there is less interest in researching stuff that mainly effects the poor/is in the interest of the poor.
Enough said for now. And don't just dismiss everything I say just because unlike you, I cannot (am not willing to spend the time and energy) pull up always some web link to a research supporting my views. I could refer you to some studies, and perhaps one day I will, but do you understand that it would require a lot of effort from me? Both because it is true, studies like that are NOT easy to find, but also because I am not a computer boy wizard, i.e. do not know where to search and how.
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