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On the same day that a Congressional panel was offering testimony about the value of alternative therapies, the National Institutes of Health took a major step toward legitimizing one such alternative, acupuncture. NIH issued an endorsement of that technique for easing pain and nausea.
While the timing of the endorsement appeared coincidental, the significance of the announcement for those promoting greater openness in Western medicine is hard to overstate. Although acupuncture is one of the best known and most widely used alternative medical techniques, the procedure has been rejected by many in the Western medical establishment as nothing more than placebo.
Although critics remain, the legitimacy provided by NIH, widely viewed as the world’s leading public health research agency, is a tremendous boost not only for acupuncture but for other alternative medical practices struggling for recognition. Earlier this year, NIH announced funding for a multisite trial of the herb St. John’s Wort in depression (Psychiatric News, November 7).
The 12-member NIH consensus panel concluded that there is "clear evidence that needle acupuncture treatment is effective for postoperative and chemotherapy nausea and vomiting, nausea of pregnancy, and postoperative dental pain." Acupuncture may also be effective in other pain-related conditions, including addiction withdrawal, headache, and menstrual cramps, but the evidence is less convincing, the panel concluded.
In a recommendation certain to resonate with psychiatrists continuing to struggle for better insurance coverage for psychiatric treatments, the panel urged insurance companies, federal and state health insurance programs including Medicare and Medicaid, and other third-party payers to expand coverage to acupuncture treatment.
There are some 10,000 acupuncture specialists in the United States, of whom 3,000 are physicians, according to the World Health Organization. Thirty-four states license or otherwise credential acupuncture practice by nonphysicians.
Americans spend $500 million and make about 9 million to 12 million patient visits for acupuncture each year, according to 1993 data from the Food and Drug Administration.
Acupuncture, which has been used for at least 2,500 years, is based on the Oriental concept that good health is contingent on patterns of energy flow along channels called meridians. This vital energy is called Qi.
"The challenge in studying acupuncture is to integrate the theory of Chinese medicine into the conventional Western biomedical research model and into the conventional health area," observed panel chair David Ramsay, M.D., president of the University of Maryland at Baltimore.