This is an interesting article about Traditional Chinese Medicine, chi and the regulation of therapies like acupuncture in BC, Canada.

here's a quote - Traditional Chinese medicine and modern, science-based medicine are diametrically opposed when it comes to their platforms of investigation. Science-based medicine is based on knowledge (acquired through the scientific method) about physiology and the body's response to external factors, such as viruses or bacteria.

Conversely, traditional Chinese medicine follows the belief that every living thing contains a life-force called qi (pronounced 'chee'). Proponents of TCM believe qi flows through the body through a system of 12 meridians (or channels) that connect to different organs in the body...

In order to restore balance and health, doctors of TCM (as they will now be called in B.C.) employ a number of methods, including acupuncture, herbal medicine, Qigong, Tui Na and exercise therapy such as Tai Ji. TCM is purported to relieve a multitude of ailments, including chronic fatigue, arthritis, PMS, high blood pressure, bronchitis, acne...the list is considerable...

Oppel heads the Alternative Therapy Evaluation Committee, a free-standing evaluative body, and is also president of Canadians for Rational Health Policy, a group whose aim is to ensure that health policies are developed based on reliable scientific evidence. His qualms with so-called 'alternative' therapies like TCM stem from the lack of scientific evidence supporting their claims.

With any therapy, there's always going to be some effect on people's perception of their illness," he says, "but in terms of whether or not things are actually getting better from a biological point of view, that remains to be demonstrated."

Although I certainly understand the need for scientific methods of investigation and gov't regulation of traditional therapies like acupuncture, I highly suspect that part of Oppel's problem with alternative therapies is simply the racism that's been part of BC's history for well over a century.

I lived on Vancouver Island for the good part of a year, and sadly enough I witnessed that racism many, many times - even among my own family. :-( There is an ever-growing multitude of "Asian-Canadians" on the West Coast, and unfortunately they are still highly resented for taking precious jobs and business away from the whites, as they have been since the late 1800's.

About acupuncture - My life-long friend Mike ran a concrete business for years. Working concrete is very hard on the back. Last year he developed a sciactic nerve problem that was so bad he barely walk and couldn't even straighten his back. He looked like an old man, all hunched over in constant pain - and he's only 42. The doctors had him on so many drugs he couldn't see or think straight, and he was still in constant pain.

They could do little else for him - except recommend acupuncture. He took a couple treatments, and there was an improvement but he was still in constant pain.

Now Mike was never interested in anything "spiritual" and always teased me to no end about my interest in natural healing and energy work. But that pain was so bad last Christmas he finally called me in desperation and asked me to work on his back with HUNA.

So I called Two Bears and we both worked on him. I used HUNA to send him energy every day for about a week. He felt enough of an improvement within a day or two to stop taking the drugs, which was a good thing! I recommended that he continue with the acupuncture treatments to speed up the clearing of blocked energy from his nervous system, which he did. After two more treatments, the pain was gone. Absolutely gone! Mike was one happy camper, believe me. He will never doubt again the effectiveness of either HUNA or acupuncture.

Mike doesn't work concrete full-time anymore, but a friend twisted his arm a month ago to pour a basement as a weekend job. Mike couldn't turn down the money he was offered, and did the job - and came home with that sciactic nerve problem flaring up again. He suffered all weekend, finally called me on the Monday asking for help again. I worked on him with HUNA (at a distance), and he saw his acupuncturist the next day for a treatment.

The pain was gone by Tues night. I was over there the next morning, watching him chop wood, so happy for my friend!

Now, I suppose people like Oppel would discount Mike's experience. After all, they'd have to dissect his spinal cord before and after the treatments in order to "prove" scientifically that any kind of change had occurred - and that would certainly make him a paraplegic. They couldn't possibly just take Mike's word for it - his subjective experiences with his pain, the acupuncture and HUNA don't meet the rigid criteria of scientific investigation. While it's understandable from a scientific point of view, in real life this just seems so ridiculous!

Now Mike doesn't care one way or the other what scientists think - he just knows that HUNA and acupuncture did for him what the best of Western medicine could not. HUNA and acupuncture - plus a change of occupation - cured that sciactic nerve and relieved him of that horrible debilitating pain. He's back to his old self - off the heavy drugs, boating and hunting and chopping wood and gardening - without a twinge of pain in his back. He looks about 20 years younger than he did last Christmas.

WHen Western medicine finally catches up with the practical knowledge that's been around for thousands of years in Eastern cultures, that will be a VERY good thing!

daylia