I’ve made it clear before that I believe, based on IQ tests and their accomplishments, that Orientals are a smart bunch. I am not a doctor, but I have a decent level of trust in Eastern medicine. They aren’t like the African shamans. They are legitimate doctors who understand how the body works. I am not saying that Eastern medicine is superior to Western medicine, but they could each be used.
There’s no reason to conclude that Orientals know nothing better than we do. I would agree that Western medicine is superior in many ways, but not universally.
In 1997, the United States Department of Health and Human Services National Institutes of Health (NIH) issued a consensus statement on acupuncture that concluded: “There is sufficient evidence of acupuncture’s value to expand its use into conventional medicine and to encourage further studies of its physiology and clinical value.”
The consensus group also noted the relative safety of acupuncture compared to certain other medical interventions. They stated that deciding when to use it in clinical practice depends on multiple factors, including “characteristics of the patient, clinical experience, potential for harm, and information from colleagues and the medical literature.”
I know several people who swear by acupuncture and other Oriental medical practices, and I am not talking about hippies who just like anything non-Western.
So why isn’t Oriental Medicine more commonly studied in our medical schools? I suspect it has to do with diversity. If we use Oriental medicine, why not African and American Indian voodoo? It would be racist not to kill patients by trying to cure AIDS with a prayer and holy water of the San bushmen.
As soon as the gates to anything non-American will be opened just a little, we’ll get a flood of voodoo into our hospitals. After all, who can admit that Orientals know more than Bushmen?
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