They don’t mind being needled

Press, 4 June 1976, Page 13

They don’t mind being needled

XV estern-trained doctors may look askance at acupuncture — its needles, moxabustion, and Chinese herbs — but Jill Aickin has found many former patients who swear by the treatment. She says:

number of complaints, including asthma, migraine, sinusitis, bronchitis, lumbago, high blood pressure, ulcers, hay fever, and multiple sclerosis, but he says that most of his patients suffer from arthritis.

Treatment costs between $5 and $lO a visit and a cure, says Mr Chan, may take a year but in exceptional cases only one visit need be necessary. I visited Mr Chan’s rooms twice and each time was invited to talk to his patients and watch them being treated. No anaesthetics are used when the needles are inserted and I was assured by all patients that it is a painless process. One woman described the sensation as being like a fingernail pricking her skin. The herbs used are especially imported from Hong Kong, and Mr Chan says they are very expensive because of their increased popularity around the world. He may have to pay up to $5OO an ounce for some of the herbs he needs for his remedies. Mr Chan is a doctor in his own country where acupuncture has long been an accepted medical practice, but in New Zealand, as in other Western countries, his techniques are not regarded as orthodox medicine. Because of this he is not allowed to “claim” cures. However, Mr Chan showed me a file full of letters from patients saying that they have been cured after years of failure with Western medicine.

Al! of the patients I spoke to said their doctors had told them nothing more could be done: acupuncture for most was a last resort. Some said their doctors had advised acupuncture and had sent them to Mr Chan for treatment. Mr Chan trained for nearly four years in Hong Kong, first at a training school and then with a private tutor. Although he claims no knowledge of Western medicine, Mr Chan believes acupuncture can be of assistance to modern drugs. For example, he says acupuncture is proving a great success in the treat-

ment of drug addiction in America, and believes New Zealand should also try such treatment.

One famous rock musician, Eric Clapton, has publicly given credit to acupuncture for curing him of a drug addiction. An international medical congress in West Berlin this week was told that people addicted to dangerous drugs, including heroin, morphine, alcohol, and nicotine, may be successfully cured by acupuncture. However, several scientists and acupuncturists presenting papers to about 1000 doctors at the third congress of the World Scientific Union of Medical Acupuncturists and Acupuncture Societies, gave a warning about sen® sational accounts of successful acupuncture treatment of drug addiction, because, they said, these might lead to exaggerated expectations by patients. “Drug addiction is a complex syndrome, involving the personality structure of the patient as well as his physical and social environment,” Dr Hans Marx, director of a West German drug-addic-tion clinic, said.

“Any successful therapy must take all these factors into account, but within the process of healing and rehabilitation, acupuncture can be one important element, and may help in cases where other medication, or psychiatric treatment, have failed.”

What do “orthodox” doctors think of acupuncture? Mr James Ardagh, president of the Christchurch branch of the medical association, classes acupuncture as a “fringe medicine,” along with hypnotherapy. “Acupuncture is not a proven treatment here,” he says. “We would like to see tests made so that we can observe for ourselves how it works. We cannot go on hearsay.”

Mr Ardagh admits that a group of New Zealand doctors is looking into the known facts abtut acupuncture. When asked whether he thinks acupuncture cures might be psychologically based, Mr Ardagh says that it is quite probable. He cites as an example the testing of the drug dramomeme (for sea-sickness).

During the Second World War half the soldiers on a ship were given the real drug and the others were given a sugar pill. Of those who had taken dramomeme, half said they had felt, sick and half of those who had taken the drugless pill said that they felt no seasickness. This sort of evidence is not sufficient proof, Mr Ardagh says. The Health Department has recently announced that it wants legislation to control acupuncture because of the increasing number of acupuncturers setting themselves up in this country. Under the suggested

legislation it would be an offence for any person who is not a registered medical practitioner, dentist, physiotherapist or veterinary surgeon to perform acupuncture. It proposed the penality of a fine up to $lOOO and or goal sentence of up to six months. One of the inclusions in the legislation is the use of acupuncture by veterinarians. This treatment is now common in China, France and America, although it is not being used by New Zealand veterinarians. The Waikato, Auckland and Rotorua Hospitals have all introduced acupuncture for pain relief.