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Insurance companies cover this crap because state legislatures pass laws that require them to in response to lobbyists. It has nothing to do with the validity or efficacy of the practices.

As far as your own personal experiences, ever hear of the placebo effect? Do you really think your anecdotes are the equivalent of the extensive investigations that have been done in these areas?

The National Science Foundation has a good publication on this topic.

http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind00/c8/c8s5.htm

And there is a lot of other literature on the topic, if you are interested in it:

http://www.chirowatch.com/cw-corruption.html
http://www.chiroweb.com/mpacms/dc/article.php?id=42556
http://www.rebuildyourback.com/chiropractic/school.php

As far as acupuncture, did you know the Chinese themselves banned it in 1929? It was only during the Cultural Revolution (trip back to superstition and ignorance) that it became allowed again.

Here is the National Council Against Health Fraud position on Acupuncture.

http://www.ncahf.org/pp/acu.html

These guys are frauds and quacks. Their prevelence in our culture is a simple indication of the failures and limitations of our educational system.

Want another?

http://www.ncahf.org/articles/o-r/reflexology.html

Quit wasting our time by trolling.

"Thinking critically" also means being skeptical of the claims of current medical orthodoxy - looking at the actual evidence rather than being swayed by name-calling.

You are exactly right, however I don't see how that was relevant in my post, or in this thread, as we are not disputing medical practice. I never said that quacks didn't exist in every line of practice. However I will say that anyone practicing acupuncture or reflexology is a quack.

Reflexology has nothing to do with Chinese Medicine.

I didn't mention reflexology together with chinese medicine for no reason. RTFA. Excerpt: "Cobblestone-like walking paths are common in China. The activity is rooted in traditional Chinese medicine and relates to some of the principles of reflexology, in that the uneven surface of the cobblestones stimulate and regulate "acupoints" located on the soles of the feet."

Many pracitioners of Chinese Medicine don't care much about trying to find a Western Medicine explanation for how acupuncture

Whether they care or not doesn't mean it works just because they believe in it. Proof of acupuncture is anecdotal at best, there is absolutely no proof that such techniques are scientifically sound.

Sure there have been lots of "studies" done on acupuncture claiming that it Really Works, however none of which were appropriate in controlling placebo and other factors such as blinding.

They see it work every day, that's enough for them.

But what about all the times that it doesn't work? And there are many. The trouble with things like this is people focus more on the times they succeed and tend to forget about all the times that things failed.

(The same can be said of many Western physicians, a surprising number of whom have little interest or knowledge of biology.)

The CM model is very much a functional, not a structural, one; the Vital Substances, the Zang-Fu organs, and the meridians are best understood by what they do, not by chopping people up looking for them.

You don't have to chop people up to look for meridians. You simply have to submit the practice to a real scientific double blind-placebo controlled test. Fancy that, here is an example: http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/abstract/143/1/1 0

For some real information see http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/ acu.html

To quote:

The National Council Against Health Fraud has concluded:

• Acupuncture is an unproven modality of treatment.
• Its theory and practice are based on primitive and fanciful concepts of health and disease that bear no relationship to present scientific knowledge
• Research during the past 20 years has not demonstrated that acupuncture is effective against any disease.
• Perceived effects of acupuncture are probably due to a combination of expectation, suggestion, counter-irritation, conditioning, and other psychologic mechanisms.
• The use of acupuncture should be restricted to appropriate research settings, Insurance companies should not be required by law to cover acupuncture treatment, Licensure of lay acupuncturists should be phased out.
• Consumers who wish to try acupuncture should discuss their situation with a knowledgeable physician who has no commercial interest [20].

So, I presume you still must attach leeches for most of your ailments?

Please take note that allopathy is a misnomer.

History of Chiropractic

Because it is associated with magnetic healing, and health tonics, etc. It is a bullshit scam, with no bases in medical fact. Your friend is a con-artist. And you have been taken to do work for bullshit in return. That is why they and I am ripping on you.

As for this hoping it would generate interesting responses bull, this is slashdot, and I've been here much longer than you. I can tell you that coming here expecting anything other than soviet russia, portman, or other jokes is asking for it.

So you can play it down and try to take the higher than I road, and shove it.

You've been had and worst than that you publicly announced it.

However, one thing has been demonstrated repeatedly: in cadavers, when amalgam fillings are extracted and tested, only a fraction of the original mercury content remains, variable directly with the age of the filling.

Can you provide a reference on this? More than one would be nice since you say it's been demonstrated repeatedly.

Mercury poisioning is not an imaginary malady, by any stretch of the imagination; ask any dentist about the precautions required for handling mercury as the amalgam is prepared... the precautions are extensive. Yet they will happily insert this substance immediately into your mouth.

Two things:

1 - Since dentists work with Hg over and over and over, they need to take precautions others don't. It's like X-Ray technicians - they hide away from the X-Ray device while happily bombarding you with high energy photons. That's because they're around it every day.

2 - Nobody denies that elemental Hg is dangerous. Precautions do need to be taken, especially before the Hg is amalgamated.

This is the position paper of the National Council Against Health Care Fraud on the topic of Hg amalgam fillings.

FTC hits claims for mosquito repellent device. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has charged Lentek International, Inc, and its principals, Joseph Durek and Lou Lentine, with making false and unsubstantiated claims that (a) their MosquitoContro devices repel mosquitoes from the user and provide an effective alternative to using chemical pesticides in the prevention of the West Nile Virus; (b) their pest-control products drive away mice, rats, bats, cockroaches, and other household pests by means of ultrasound and electromagnetic technology; and (c) their air-cleaning products remove various pollutants from indoor air through ozone and ionization. The company, located in Orlando, Florida, markets air cleaners, pest-control devices, housewares, pet products, personal care products, and flashlights through the Internet, retail stores, catalogs, and individual home distributors. [FTC alleges electronic mosquito repellent claims are false; sellers also lack evidence for ultrasonic pest-control and air cleaning product claims. FTC news release, Aug 28, 2002]