Acupuncture: Eager Boys and Wolves

Veterinarians have heard of “promising” claims of “complementary” or “alternative” veterinary medicine (CAVM) for at least three decades. The only thing that’s not been forthcoming is good evidence of effectiveness.
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In the children’s story "The Boy who Cried Wolf," a young shepherd amuses himself by crying "Wolf!" and enticing villagers to run to help him save his flock. After a time, when there were never any wolves, no one paid attention to the cries.

As it is with sheep, so it also is with unproven treatments. Veterinarians have heard of "promising" claims of "complementary" or "alternative" veterinary medicine (CAVM) for at least three decades. Countless articles, books, and reports of successes have appeared, mostly in the popular press. Appeals have been made to the putative popularity of such therapies, the purported antiquity of some, or their almost miraculous nature, supposedly both less toxic and more effective and more "natural" than the complicated and difficult real medicine practiced by the vast majority of veterinarians. The only thing that’s not been forthcoming is good evidence of effectiveness.

Scientists have looked for decades, but so far when they’ve looked, like the young boy in another children’s story, they’ve found that the emperor of "alternative" veterinary medicine has no clothes. In human medicine, where "alternative" medicine has been widely studied, convincing evidence of effectiveness has failed to materialize for the use of acupuncture, chiropractic, homeopathy, magnets, lasers, etc. (Herbs are a special case, and while they are mostly ineffective, for a variety of reasons, they are merely crude, uncontrolled drugs.) The only review of acupuncture in horses did not support its use. No good studies of veterinary chiropractic have been published in any major veterinary publication. Good studies in veterinary homeopathy have been uniformly negative.

But it’s not just the lack of evidence, it’s also the claims, ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous. The claim that acupuncture was practiced on animals 4,000 years ago is absurd. Serious historians have found that the current practice has been tried only for the last 50 years or so, and that it originates mostly from France, not China. Acupuncture points have never been demonstrated. "Auricular acupuncture" developed in the mid-1950s in France is based on the supposition that the human ear looks like an upside-down fetus (how’s that supposed to relate to animals?). Chiropractic "subluxations" have never been demonstrated in any species. "Specific" adjustments, forces precisely directed at a point on the spine, have been shown to be impossible. And so it goes

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Written by:

David Ramey

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