The Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong, in response to a lack of modern medical practitioners, revived acupuncture, and had its theory rewritten to adhere to the political, economic, and logistic necessities of providing for the medical needs of China's population.[page needed] In the 1950s the "history" and theory of traditional Chinese medicine was rewritten as communist propaganda, at Mao's insistence, to correct the supposed "bourgeois thought of Western doctors of medicine".[1] Acupuncture gained attention in the United States when President Richard Nixon visited China in 1972, and the delegation was shown a patient undergoing major surgery while fully awake, ostensibly receiving acupuncture rather than anesthesia. Later it was found that the patients selected for the surgery had both a high pain tolerance and received heavy indoctrination before the operation; these demonstration cases were also frequently receiving morphine surreptitiously through an intravenous drip that observers were told contained only fluids and nutrients. Cochrane reviews found acupuncture is not effective for a wide range of conditions.[2] A systematic review of systematic reviews found that for reducing pain, real acupuncture was no better than sham acupuncture. Although, other reviews have found that acupuncture is successful at reducing chronic pain, where as sham acupuncture was not found to be better than a placebo as well as no-acupuncture groups.[3]
- ^ Taylor 2005, p. 109.
- ^ Ernst, Edzard (2009). "Acupuncture: What Does the Most Reliable Evidence Tell Us?". Journal of Pain and Symptom Management. 37 (4): 709–714. doi:10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2008.04.009. ISSN 0885-3924. PMID 18789644.
- ^ Vickers, A. J.; Cronin, A. M.; Maschino, A. C.; Lewith, G; MacPherson, H; Foster, N. E.; Sherman, K. J.; Witt, C. M.; Linde, K; Acupuncture Trialists' Collaboration (2012-10-22). "Acupuncture for chronic pain: Individual patient data meta-analysis". Archives of Internal Medicine. 172 (19): 1444–1453. doi:10.1001/archinternmed.2012.3654. ISSN 0003-9926. PMC 3658605. PMID 22965186.