Anesthesia and Analgesia Controversy over Acupuncture

This is the pro side
Here is the con side
I guess I am taken aback at the scorn thrown at the acupuncture camp.  I wonder why they didn’t spend their time berating truly expensive and dangerous therapies such as vertebral cement.  Even if you choose to ignore the acupuncture studies showing effect on the limbic system in the brain, or animal studies which clearly show antalgesia, you are left with the fact that acupuncture shows 15% more analgesic effect than sham acupuncture. And that doesn’t even count the effect over control.  15% is the same amount that NSAIDS produce.  So if patients choose to get needled instead of taking NSAIDS and get the added bonus of improved sleep and mood, why are these guys so pissed off about it?  Why aren’t they angry about the really dangerous, really expensive treatments?  For a walk through some of them go here.  Medicine and medical treatments are incredibly complicated and unpredictable.  If they weren’t, we could cure cancer, Parkinson’s or the cold.  So what bothers me is this attitude that acupuncturists are the ones in it for the money and not trying to help out, and  Prozac, Viagra, Vioxx creators are the ones on the side of the angels.