Vioxx

One of the greatest frauds being intentionally perpetuated by some unscrupulous agents on both eastern and western medical “sides” is the idea that the two are mutually exclusive and never shall the two meet.  If one’s motivation is merely to profit from the medicine then it stands to benefit the practitioner to see the other side as “competition” and try to discredit it.  On the other hand, if one has in mind the benefit of the patient, then I believe one must at least be open to what the other side shall contribute.

Now THIS kind of West vs East I heartily encourage!

On the “alternative” medicine side in general, there is a conscious effort to paint “Big Pharma” as some evil, money-grubbing organization deliberately poisoning the population.

On the “conventional” or western side, there is an effort by a powerful few to brand alternatives as unscientific, or at the very least, incompatible with conventional medicine.

Both are lurid extremes hurting both sides and ultimately the patient.

I acknowledge that it is difficult to reconcile apparently conflicting ideas.  Some acupuncture instructors, when training western MDs, sometimes begin their didactics by saying that the MD must first “forget” western medicine to appreciate eastern medicine.  Boulderdash.

On the other hand, I remember some of my western medicine professors in university commenting on how “primitive” Chinese medicine seems because of Chinese medicine’s use of “nature” terms in it’s vocabulary such as “wind”, “cold” and “dampness”.  It is conveniently forgotten that the root word for the western medical term “inflammation” is in fact, “flame”.

In a spirited email exchange, I was warned that I, being biased towards acupuncture (and freely admitting it, although I am not biased because of financial reasons – I could make a heckuvalot more money as a pure western MD with all the drug company money and laboratory test kickbacks…) might suffer from “cognitive dissonance” when faced with “evidence” that acupuncture apparently doesn’t work.

So what is “cognitive dissonance”?

Changingminds.org defines it thus:

This is the feeling of uncomfortable tension which comes from holding two conflicting thoughts in the mind at the same time.

Dissonance increases with:

• The importance of the subject to us.
• How strongly the dissonant thoughts conflict.
• Our inability to rationalize and explain away the conflict.

Dissonance is often strong when we believe something about ourselves and then do something against that belief. If I believe I am good but do something bad, then the discomfort I feel as a result is cognitive dissonance.

Cognitive dissonance is a very powerful motivator which will often lead us to change one or other of the conflicting belief or action. The discomfort often feels like a tension between the two opposing thoughts. To release the tension we can take one of three actions:

• Change our behavior.
• Justify our behavior by changing the conflicting cognition.
• Justify our behavior by adding new cognitions.

Unfortunately for skeptics I do not feel any cognitive dissonance in my practice of medicine and with the research.  It is because I realize that I am not God. I do not know everything.  No one knows everything.  What we know are bits and pieces of things, and even how they fit together is subject to personal, collective societal and cultural bias. I adapt the attitude of St. Thomas Aquinas thus, as quoted by William G. Most:

Father William G. Most

Let us imagine that this theologian is standing on the circumference of a circle. From each of two or more points on the circumference, he tries to draw a line that will reach the center of the circle, that is, the true solution. If he has done his work well, all lines will come to a focus in the center.What will a good theologian do if not all the lines seem to focus? First, he will recheck his work for possible errors. But what should he do if he finds no error? If he is following theological rather than philosophical method, he will not try to make one line focus with another line. Rather he will say: “Now we are in theology, in lofty divine matters. It is not strange if mysteries appear. Therefore, even though I cannot see how to reconcile two lines, yet I must hold both truths.” And so, he will confess simply that he cannot go further.

(Most, William G. Grace, Predestination and the Salvific Will of God, accessed online  April 3, 2010 http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/most/getchap.cfm?WorkNum=214&ChapNum=4)

We are not theologians yes, and we are not dealing with “lofty divine matters”.  However the attitude should be the same. What happens if the lines don’t seem to focus? First we check for errors.

Thousands of years of experience shows that inserting a needle in acupoint Hegu relieves pain in general, and the effects are supposedly different depending on the manipulation and the patient condition.  I am but one physician, but I have duplicated this in the clinic.  I know many others who have.  Acupuncture is now accepted in many conventional hospitals in the United States to assist in childbirth (email correspondence with Dr. Eleonor Lazo, MD) Yet the skeptics who would destroy any possible synergy between the two medical traditions would try to use statistics to bash us. They say research shows that it doesn’t work.  When we show them research that shows acupuncture works, they’ll always find something to put it down, such as sample size, or it’s just a preliminary study etc etc, utterly forgetting their own sins (http://qi-spot.com/2010/02/21/another-big-pharma-cover-up/, http://qi-spot.com/2010/02/22/more-magic-numbers-this-time-its-celebrex/) And now apparently Lipitor causes increase in blood sugar too!  So much for peer review.

Is it too much for me, therefore, to suggest that when statistics apparently contradict clinical experience, we examine the statistics first?   It seems to me that when acupuncture is shown to work, the studies are supposedly “faulty” yet perfectly alright when the opposite is apparently shown.  My last post (http://qi-spot.com/2010/03/30/how-to-research-acupuncture/) shows why I believe current research paradigms for acupuncture are imperfect, thus leading to apparent conflicts.

The second problem is how we perceive if something “works”.  Most studies try to compare a treatment to the placebo effect.  I think the placebo effect is like St. Jude Thaddeus – getting a bad rap because of nomenclature.  Selling something known to be placebo is bad – you’re cheating customers.  Encouraging the placebo effect with good bedside manner – is that bad?  Now the argument is that acupuncture is “just a placebo”.  How can acupuncture be just a placebo when there are many studies (I refer the reader to http://www.acupuncture.com.au/articles/archive.html because I am too lazy to cut and paste them now) that show the specific physiological mechanisms of how it works?  A placebo by definition doesn’t do anything.  Acupuncture does something.  The question is is that something it does good?  As I have blogged before, improved sleep is good.  Easier walking is good.  Regular bowel movement is good. More energy is good. Decreased pain is good.  It had previously been pointed out that western medicine by definition should have a greater “placebo effect” due to cultural bias.  Yet acupuncture can work where western medicine doesn’t.  So much for “placebo”.

I also examine motivation.  What is my end point? To prove acupuncture works? No.  I believe it does.  To prove it doesn’t work?  Well, I’m not OUT to prove it doesn’t work, but I AM on the lookout to see where it works best, and where it sucks.  How? By personal study, reading both eastern and western medical journals (although I ignore 60s and 70s Chinese studies as those are ridiculously biased – hello cultural revolution!) By learning from the experiences of clinicians (I think it’s obvious I am biased towards the clinical experiences of great practitioners – lots of clinical pearls there) and from personal experience (I’ve developed some acupuncture manipulation tricks of my own ha ha).   I put a LOT of value on genuine clinical experience by great thinkers.  Edward Jenner was initially ridiculed for proposing his cowpox innoculation theory to protect against smallpox, because it went against the theory of the time.  Yet he was adamant because he was backed by clinical experience.

Edward Jenner was ridiculed for his ideas, as seen in this contemporary cartoon. (Click to enlarge)

If one is out on a witch hunt, to prove Chinese medicine doesn’t work, then everything you see will be filtered through that lens.  The same accusation can be made against me, that I see everything differently because I believe Chinese medicine works.  In that sense, we’re all bothered by cognitive dissonance!  Skeptics try to rationalize their position by citing statistics (which we know can be manipulated).  We rationalize our position by citing different statistics (which again, we acknowledge are manipulable).

I guess where I’m going with this is: unless we be like what William G. Most describes: true lovers of knowledge acknowledging our intellect is limited, we’ll be going nowhere.  In the meantime, what I do often (of course not always) works for my patients, the advice I give them based on Chinese medicine principles often (of course not always -THAT would be true placebo) works.  So if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.