From Susan Linden:

Re: Study seeks to show how acupuncture really works (May 30): I haven’t read the original study which was the subject of this article, but the way it’s reported on your site impelled a response.

Call me cynical, but it sounds like “Big Pharma” has struck again!

Ex. , last statement: “ ‘Thus, medications that interfere with A1 receptors or adenosine metabolism may improve the clinical benefit of acupuncture, ’ the researchers wrote.”

I’m guessing that perhaps Big Pharma was a contributor to this study, but regardless... why is it always that the end conclusion involves a way to insert the possibility of a new drug?

First, I’d guess that the parameters of the study were too narrow.

As a clinician of thirty years experience, I’ve spent the last ten years including a meridian-based therapy in my practice.

Essentially, it works without needles, by energetically contacting key meridian points through the tissue by the hands of the practitioner.

It has been discovered that needles are fine, but not necessary for results if the meridians can be unblocked in less intrusive ways. My clients and I can testify, as can many other recipients of this technique, that there are startlingly effective changes, shifts, etc. in not only pain perception, but more importantly, healing, with these techniques.

Therefore, my conclusion is that while acupuncture needles might indeed facilitate pain pathways and therefore relieve pain, there is something far more important going on here, and that is freeing up the energy pathways that are blocked, so that they can do their jobs.

The technique involved was not of my making but has been brought from the East and taught in this country for many years.

It’s not relevant to mention the particular one, since there may be others equally effective.

The point is that as a scientifically trained clinician with medical board licensure, I’ve spent my professional life trying to disprove much “holistic” theory and there is no question that unblocking meridians works.

My clients confirm it and I have experienced it myself.

The study you’ve covered today is like other studies critiquing acupuncture... they all seem to focus on the pain-relieving qualities of the technique. There is something far greater involved with this theory, which eclipses the actual pain control.

Again, going in the direction of implying that acupuncture and related modalities are primarily pain management practices (1) diminishes the concept; and (2) plays right into the hands of the drug industries that, frankly, would rather see us limp along with a band-aid approach to physical dysfunction.

I welcome the day that science research can stand independently and make its own conclusions out of curiosity and altruism!