As we all know, the health care industry in the US isn't serving a lot of us very well.  The for-profit system leaves millions without coverage and those that have coverage are sometimes still stuck with medical bills.  In my opinion, we need only to look just to our north for a better way.  In fact in British Columbia, the province government just passed a law to cover acupuncture for families who make $28,000 or less.  If only we could follow this good example.

http://www.westcoaster.ca/modules/AMS/article.php?storyid=3981

I'd never heard of "Battlefield Acupuncture" until today, when I read a paper in a journal called Medical Acupuncture.  Dr. Richard C. Niemtzow, who appears to be an air force colonel, developed a system of ear acupuncture to treat acute pain quickly and efficiently.  He uses five specific points in the ear and treats them each with a small ear tack, which stays in place for 3-4 days.  The paper explains that this method was conceived after 9/11 and has promise for treating pain on the military battlefield.  Wow, I think this quite an innovative use for acupuncture.  But, I wonder if soldiers in China used these methods thousands of years ago and we're reinventing the wheel once again?

http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/acu.2007.0603

Calling all skeptics!  Here's a blog for you, which calls into question all of the recent studies on the so-called efficacy of acupuncture.  Mike Lacelle of The Rogues Gallery, which is the official blog of the Skeptics Guide to the Universe, notes that poorly conducted acupuncture studies are pouring into the media more and more.  One of his main points (pun intended) is that the methods of study are flawed, so he doesn't accept the conclusions of the researchers as fact.  I don't disagree that the methods are often lacking and the conclusions seem forced at times.  What I want to know is - when are Western researchers going to stop trying to study something which can't actually fit into their research models?  You can't double-blind acupuncture!  Researchers have tried to get around this gold-standard of medical science in a myriad of ways - and none all that successful as of yet.  The fact that most studies on acupuncture are poorly conducted is just another growing pain in the adolescent life of acupuncture in the West.  The studies are poorly conducted because the models of research dwarf the wisdom of this incredible system of medicine. 

http://www.theskepticsguide.org/sgublog/?p=151