Acupuncture: finding a place in integrative medicine

Abstract

The very existence of acupuncture today could be considered fortunate, considering the oppressions it has endured during the past 120 years. Saks (1995) sees acupuncture in late nineteenth century Western societies being pushed to the brink of extinction by orthodoxmedicine’s rejection of the technique. Fruehauf (1999) describes how traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) within China suffered oppression throughout the first half of the twentieth century, initially under the Republican revolt led by Sun Yat-sen in 1911. Legislation to restrict TCM in China in 1929 was only halted due to street protests. Mao Zedong’s admonition of’old doctors’ in 1942 would for the next 25 years serve as the Red Guard’s main license for the persecution of the theory, culture, education and practice of traditional medicine.In Australia, O’Neill (1994) describes a significant breakthrough in TCM’s quest for government recognition of the profession as being linked to the actions of one of its perceived opponents, the National Health and Medical Research Council (NH&MRC). When the NH&MRCargued against registration of traditional (non-medical) acupuncturists because of concerns that their practice was unsafe, the practitioners themselves proposed that registration would instead address these concerns. The argument had shifted from one of scientifically proving the efficacy of TCM, rendered largely invalid because of the significant proportion of medical practitionerspracticing or recommending acupuncture, to one of public safety. Safe standards became linked with education and training, with both undergraduate education for beginning practitioners and postgraduate training for practicing professionals, wanting to include acupuncture as part of an integrated treatment regime, moving into the universitysector (Easthope 2002).