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[Music]

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Welcome back to a previously halfway recorded episode.

0:15

Welcome back to the episode previously underway.

0:18

Yeah, we had a slight technical error, so we are re-recording the first half of the show.

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So, welcome to Interesting of True, the podcast that sticks our sharp voices right in your eerie meridians.

0:28

And so, yes, your eerie meridians, like are they eerie, like scary or eerie because they're

0:33

literal years? Well, depending on if they're spelled different, I was like, how did you spell this, Aaron?

0:39

With an A? [LAUGHTER]

0:41

Eerie? E-E-A-R-E-A-R.

0:43

Yeah, that's the one on your head, right?

0:48

Okay, then I did it right. Okay, the other one is E-E-R-I?

0:51

Oh. I can't, I don't even, I can't spell either.

0:54

No, one of them's a lake, but definitely not that one.

0:57

- Definitely not the late.

1:00

- No, so we are gonna talk a little bit about acupuncture today and I am your host, Aaron

1:04

and with me is my best buddy, Shay. - I'm Shay and this week I learned that there's no winning

1:08

at parenting, only damage control. - That is true.

1:12

I work with a guy who likes to say that every time

1:14

you make a mistake as a parent, you put like a five

1:16

or a 20 in a jar and that is for therapy

1:18

when they're an adult. If you raise a child with less than 10 grand in that jar,

1:23

you've probably done a pretty good job. - But you won at parenting.

1:25

- Yeah. - See, this is the most ridiculous thing, so the kid went out last night

1:28

with friends. - Yeah. - And we've really only had the kid in our house

1:31

for what, three and a half, four months now. It's not that long. - Right.

1:34

- And yesterday we're sitting on the couch watching a movie, we look at each other and it was,

1:36

oh my God, it's been so long since we've been able

1:38

to have the house to ourself. - Right. - And then we paused and went,

1:41

oh my God, we've only had it for four months, we are ridiculous. (laughing)

1:45

- That explains why there's all that green jello on the ceiling. - Oh, cool.

1:47

(laughing)

1:50

- Yeah, yeah, my understanding is that that takes

1:54

amount of effort. We have dogs. Yeah, I like the dogs. Yeah. It was Fletcher's 13th birthday

1:59

yesterday. Oh, shit. I didn't realize it. Or adoption day anyway. Do you guys do anything fun for him?

2:03

He got a happy meal. Nice. As is his want, usually. Yeah, playing hamburger with some

2:08

unsalted fries. That sounds perfect. Yeah, he did not complain. I don't think he would have.

2:12

He got the box stuck on his head a couple of times. Oh, did Amy complain because she didn't

2:16

get to partake? Oh, no, we got her a chicken nugget. Oh, good. He's a chicken nugget dog.

2:22

- Oh, and that is her vice.

2:24

- Oh, that's great. - Yeah, as far as Amy's not a dog that really cares

2:28

about food treats except chicken nuggets.

2:30

- Oh, chicken nuggets are good. - Love's chicken nuggets.

2:33

- I'll have to remember that. - So we got like a bag of super cheap chicken nuggets

2:36

to cut into pieces for when we're doing training and stuff.

2:39

- Oh yeah, that's brilliant. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, 'cause otherwise,

2:41

she likes her treat before bed or whatever, but she's just like, I don't know, I'm a dog, man.

2:45

- Yeah, whatever. - That's sometimes goosey.

2:47

If I'm eating, he couldn't care less about anything dog treat related,

2:51

- Even if it's like the most expensive dog treat, the tiny piece of cheese I'm chewing on is better.

2:54

- Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, the celery, then peanut butter that you're eating

2:57

is definitely better than the super fancy cowhide.

3:01

- Yeah, and then he'll eat the celery,

3:03

he'll go spit it out in the corner, and then go eat his cheese.

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He just doesn't trust me that he won't like it. - Right, well that's, yeah, yeah.

3:10

Until we assured Fletcher that like,

3:12

no, indeed the Happy Meal is the treat.

3:14

He was just like staring at it, he's like, I don't know, the next thing might be better.

3:17

Like better than I, like you spoiled?

3:20

It's like, "Nope, I'll wait." - Yeah, right.

3:22

Yeah, so he got a Happy Meal and they got new beds.

3:25

- Oh, nice. - So Fletcher has always had this habit

3:28

of digging in his bed. And it's like a burrowing, dinnin' instinct, right?

3:31

But in his old days, it's just gotten bad. There's nothing to be done.

3:35

- Yeah. - So we found this place that sells dog beds

3:38

that are wrapped in kind of a waterproof,

3:40

plastic thing, like all dog beds are, right? But the inside of it is stuffed with memory foam chunks.

3:45

- Oh, cool. - And then the whole thing is kind of,

3:48

how to describe this, geez. It's got like a flat bottom.

3:50

The memory chunks are like in pockets or kind of,

3:53

they come up and then the whole thing goes inside of the duvet cover essentially.

3:57

- Oh nice. - It's designed so that stuff can go in between

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the pockets of memory foam so he dig treats out

4:03

and like when he digs stuff around, it actually moves like pumps of stuff around.

4:06

- Oh that's really cool. - Yeah so he's got a new designed to be dug at

4:11

orthopedic dog bed. - That's.

4:13

- Cause he's fucking spoiled. - That is really freaking cool.

4:15

- That's awesome actually. I can kind of picture exactly.

4:18

sounds like a slow feeder you can sit in

4:20

yeah exactly it's like a space foam slow feeder exactly

4:26

because i had i had like a mat for goose at one point he managed to rip the entire thing apart but it was very similar had a bunch of pockets just didn't have the memory foam that sounds really cool for Fletcher

4:34

yeah he's he's loving having that

4:37

the zotto feeder in his little water fountain thing as a 15 year old dog i think he's yeah he's earned it right like he's definitely there i mean you wouldn't know it he still bounces around like a crazy

4:46

I was gonna say you'd like to think he would calm down, but he did not.

4:49

He did not. No. No. So that's what we've been up to. Dog beds and dog birthdays.

4:54

Oh, that's awesome. All right. Well, with that though, we should dive back into this. So happy

5:01

Meet a March, I guess, when this is going out. Oh, yeah. It is.

5:05

We meant to do it last month, but again, technical trouble.

5:07

Yep. And then having a kid at the house makes it difficult to find times to record.

5:11

So sorry about that, guys. So acupuncture recently and when I say recently we're just gonna have to add some time to any reference of time on the count of recording delay.

5:21

Yeah. But recently it stuck itself back in my life.

5:25

Needle buns. Oh. So I'm gonna get right to the point.

5:28

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. See.

5:30

I caught that one. Yeah. How many of these bad jokes do you have?

5:33

I think that's it because I was not having a very good writer's day.

5:37

Now, first time I'm gonna recap a little bit from episode 53, which was our intro into acupuncture.

5:43

we just kind of generally talked about what it was.

5:45

So from episode 53's intro, acupuncture was initially described in the she-chee text,

5:50

circa 90 BCE, it describes 11 mo or vessels that held chi.

5:54

About 100 years later, there were 12 mo and the chi flows through the body.

5:57

And then over the next 2000 years, the 12 mo turned into 100 or 1000s,

6:01

depending on who you talk to, because there is no standard in the points don't matter.

6:04

Well, the points that go through your skin do. Yeah, if they each are lugs, they sure as fuck do.

6:09

So where do they like do-- What's the scientific process on finding more vessels?

6:13

You need a chart of a human body and a marker.

6:16

Okay. End of process. Do you need a human body?

6:19

Like to find said best? No, I don't think you do.

6:22

Okay. I think you just get to put this wherever you want.

6:25

Nice. Yeah. Just like the migrating uterus is that women have the

6:29

migrated to rise. Oh, yes. She that's exactly how that works.

6:34

Yes. In the early 1900s, China, like the rest of the world,

6:38

became focused on the industrial revolution of the Western

6:40

countries and sought to adopt Western science-based medicine or such that it was at the time anyway.

6:46

Traditional medicine, again, not yet traditional Chinese medicine because we haven't yet made it to

6:50

that part of the branding of the story, was on its way out and from 1927 and 1936 the Chinese

6:55

Journal of Physiology has nothing to say on the topic. So what I'm hearing now is traditional

7:00

medicine, terrible, not based in science. Yeah. Traditional Chinese medicine, amazing, powerful

7:05

healing. Yes. I depending on which side of the transaction you're on. Yes.

7:10

Or what year? Yeah, right. For the payee, that's going great.

7:15

The foundation of acupuncture is the belief that once Chi or Key, if you're wanting to be

7:20

super-critical of your pronunciation or charge an iPhone, needs tending. Under normal,

7:24

desirable conditions, your Chi flows through your body all freely along pathways in the body

7:28

called meridians. Veins. Right. Exactly. Chi is blood. Chi blood. Think of these as the force

7:34

flowing through the Jedi's forced circulatory or force lymphatic system.

7:37

Ah yes. Ah yes. Illness, then, is caused by Qi blockages or imbalances,

7:42

and not the cool kind that Tylia or the Kyoshi warriors can inflict.

7:45

And yes, I am shamelessly reusing my Avatar jokes from episode 53,

7:48

because they're good, and according to my mother, hilarious.

7:50

Good. Did she watch Avatar? I have no idea.

7:53

The great if she did, it wouldn't really surprise me if she did.

7:56

I think she just picked up on the laugh track. That works.

7:58

The treatment, if you will, is to insert a now ultra-tiny,

8:03

thin needle into the body where the meridians overlap to improve the flow and balance of

8:07

your chi because of needle.

8:09

Awesome, now I want to go back real quick.

8:11

Now, Tiny. Mmm, yeah.

8:13

Well, we're original chain needles? Did Jesus have like a crinkiness neck?

8:17

[laughter] That's really aggressive, happy puncture.

8:21

It's before the needles were tiny.

8:23

Before the yeah, that was back when you were using a medical nail or a surgical ice pick.

8:27

No, I don't know. I mean, you know, way back in the day, I'm sure there were metal smiths of sufficient

8:31

talent to make reasonably thin needles, but it was still very much a smithonet by hand

8:37

kind of situation, which leads me to believe that unless you were the doctor to people

8:42

of influence and power and money, you were probably getting the business end of a medical

8:48

nail or a surgical splinter.

8:51

And I would imagine back then they probably hadn't invented surgical steel yet.

8:55

So no, no, no, that was a let's hope it's not too rusty situation.

8:59

But then as now, it's not like there's room in any of these theories for germ theory

9:04

of disease. I mean, not that they would have known about it back in the day, but the cleanliness practices

9:08

have not improved. It's my point.

9:10

I challenge you to find a promotional picture of an acupuncture restaurant where they're

9:13

wearing gloves. That is so true.

9:15

Wow. At least in some parts of the country and indeed the world that is like obligated and indeed

9:20

using single use disposable needles is, but not everywhere, not always and certainly

9:24

not by practitioner choice. A lot of it is mandated because otherwise you're just sticking people full of AIDS.

9:31

Yeah, well, and if I was performing fake medicine on people that thought it was real,

9:35

I'd want to keep my overhead down too. I'm going to reuse needles and not going to use gloves.

9:39

Yeah, there you go. I gave them a rinse.

9:41

What more do you want? Just like, "Dempted to be listerine and barbecile."

9:45

Oh, God. If you've done that.

9:48

So this is obviously nonsense. And despite thousands of years and many times many more attempts to analyze it,

9:53

No one has ever proven the existence of much less their ability to manipulate

9:57

Chi by any name. Darn it. Yeah, Reiki, cupping, dry needling, all of it on their ilk are at best

10:03

magical thinking nonsense and at worst they tragically poor substitute for actual medical

10:07

intervention. Yeah, this is a reason why Randy's millions never got claimed.

10:10

Uh huh. Along comes a plucky little dictator by the name of Charamund Malzay Dong and his cultural

10:15

revolution. Just a plucky little dictator.

10:18

I don't know how else do you introduce my thought. I think that worked pretty well actually.

10:22

Tens of millions are dying of starvation and disease,

10:24

and Mal can't help everyone, even if he wanted to,

10:26

and not even close, but he can placate everyone by encouraging the use

10:30

of newly branded traditional Chinese medicine or TCM.

10:33

Ah, there you go. Placate the masses by giving them something that doesn't work.

10:38

He keeps them quiet right up until they're no longer allowed

10:40

or able to make noise anymore. And if you're really using needles, it's been cost much.

10:44

Yeah, right, it's real cheap. It's real cheap to poke holes in people.

10:47

Dictators have been good at that for a long, long time.

10:49

He really has. Now the Chinese Communist Party knows that it doesn't work, but it does stop the complaints,

10:55

and it does give the appearance of doing something in the face of so much needless suffering and death.

11:00

So, then he'd listen. Actually, dead accidentally spelt that way.

11:04

[laughter] That's better. So that's what they went with.

11:06

In the early 1970s, acupuncture began to hang hold globally.

11:09

dodgy studies coupled with public demonstrations that were little more than magic shows

11:13

captured the West's imagination, and suddenly acupuncture could do anything,

11:16

including kill Jettleys and Ames and Kiss of the Dragon.

11:19

With that, okay, acupuncture dumb stupid, kiss the dragon was flipping awesome.

11:23

Because the dragon was a fun movie.

11:25

There was some silly in it for sure.

11:28

Oh, so good. These days though, TCM in general and acupuncture specifically are worth billions globally.

11:33

Wait, with a B? With a B.

11:35

With a big ol' fat B. God, okay.

11:37

The botanicals acupuncture industry, which is usually how it's listed, kind of two things

11:41

together, is valued at $38.97 billion with a B dollars in 2020 and is expected to jump

11:48

by nearly 20% in 2027, according to the Grandview Research and Industry Analysis firm.

11:54

Other, less top of Google firms estimate between $30 and $150 billion by 2030,

12:00

which is admittedly a big-ass gap, but even at the low end, this is more than enough money for

12:04

unscrupulous doctors, insurers, and charlatans to sell you dangerous, unhelpful nonsense.

12:09

Even if it didn't grow at all, someone's making $38 or people are making $38 billion with a B.

12:13

Yeah, with a B. There's a lot of money. There's a lot of money.

12:17

Wow. Mm-hmm. It's no surprise then that the party general secretary Xi Jinping supports it

12:23

and has partnered with some 70 countries globally to export and boost the industry.

12:27

This includes training and more TCM practitioners, and I refuse to use the word doctor. Good.

12:32

Paying for studies in support of TCM and censoring or, you know, unaliving, dissenting opinions.

12:39

Chinese scientists and researchers who have questioned TCM in recent years,

12:43

specifically with regard to the toxic nature of some treatments, right, because not all

12:47

needles are made out of, like, let's say radiologically inert metals.

12:51

I love my uranium needles.

12:54

Right. We work the best. They have retracted their statements, which brings us up to current.

13:00

As some of you know, my wife Ashley suffers from chronic pain and is therefore

13:04

inundated with assholes offering worthless opinions.

13:06

It also means things like acupuncture come up frequently in various Facebook

13:10

Reddit, et cetera group she's in. And recently, acupuncture was suggested for a nerve pain sufferer and was

13:15

is anecdotally supported because insurance pays for it.

13:18

- Oh, yeah. - Well, if insurance pays for it,

13:20

that would lead me to believe that it must work a little bit, right?

13:22

'Cause I hate shelling out money. - It does lend credence, which is kind of the problem

13:26

and where today's story begins. - Ah, darn it.

13:29

- Yeah. So naturally, this has dominated my focus

13:31

and will push back my AI story,

13:33

which every time I go to write the AI story,

13:36

there's something new and cool out. And so like--

13:38

- There's a lot of weird AI stuff going on. - I don't even know if I'm gonna be able to cover it

13:41

because the story folder just keeps growing.

13:44

How long until you can just automate your job

13:46

because of AI? You gotta be close, right?

13:49

- Right, yeah. (laughing) - Terrifyingly close, actually.

13:52

- I did read a funny meme about ITV that it said,

13:54

"An IT professional will spend 27 hours writing a script

13:59

"to do a five second job that he has to work."

14:02

- That is true, but what that meme doesn't tell you

14:05

is that you have to do that five second process six million times a day.

14:08

- Okay, then that makes more sense, all right. (laughing)

14:11

- Sometimes. - Okay, if that makes sense now. Occasionally.

14:13

(laughter) Yeah, clocks in and out for me.

14:17

I don't even have to go to work anymore.

14:19

Right? Exactly.

14:21

Be quiet before I replace you with a small pearl script.

14:24

(laughter) Because your cis admins are powerful and quick to anger.

14:28

Part of the reason that the Mercy-side Skeptic Society and the Good Thinking Society of Skeptics

14:32

with a K-Pod fame, anyway, have sought to end homeopathy on the NHS and, I mean, they're

14:37

crushing it. And if you're not listening to Skeptics with a K and you're listening to us, what are

14:40

you doing with your life? - supplementing.

14:42

- Yeah. - Another woo-to, of course, is because of this argument,

14:47

it must be valid if doctors prescribe it

14:49

and or insurance will pay for it, right?

14:51

- It's hard not to see the logic behind that

14:54

because doctors are paid to keep you safe

14:56

and if they're gonna send me to an acupuncture, is they know what they're doing?

14:58

I haven't gone to medical school. - Well, exactly, right?

15:01

You trust people who purport to be experts.

15:03

The problem is what they are an expert in

15:05

may not actually be giving you quality medical help.

15:10

that maybe what they're educated in, but what their experts at is separating fools money.

15:15

- Yeah, and I actually, I learned this not because

15:17

of acupuncture, but another procedure.

15:19

And my wife and I were a counselor and we're talking about things.

15:21

And my anxiety came up and how it predominantly happens

15:24

when I wake up in the morning. She's like, "Oh, you should get tested for sleep apnea."

15:28

And I was like, "Yeah, I talked to my doctor." She thought that was dumb.

15:30

And the counselor was like, "Okay, did you talk

15:32

"to another doctor?" I'm like, "No, why would I talk to another doctor?"

15:34

My doctor said it was no big deal. And the counselor was like, "What?"

15:38

- Yeah. Your doctor might not be right.

15:41

And I was like, oh, oh yeah.

15:43

- Yeah, if one mechanic tells you that you need goat blood in your carburetor.

15:46

- Yeah, I forget about that. 'Cause I just automatically assume

15:49

that if you're a doctor, you are smarter than me.

15:51

- Well, and that's part of the problem. My case, you know, I mean,

15:54

we haven't talked about it on the air yet, although I will be in the very near future as ADHD.

15:59

Which is actually the source of all the anxiety that I have been talking about

16:02

over the course of the whole podcast, right? - You don't even have anxiety.

16:05

- No, no, no, I'm on the right medication.

16:08

It turns out, wait, what? - Yeah.

16:10

So yeah, no, second opinion is difficult for a lot of reasons,

16:14

especially when you live in rural Wyoming,

16:16

but financially it can be really difficult.

16:19

But the rise of the, so there's actually,

16:21

there's a great TED talk from Dr. Mike of YouTube,

16:23

fame called The Rise of the Know It All Doctor, which everybody should watch.

16:27

'Cause when you think about doctors, you're like, you know, what's like the smartest profession,

16:30

right? Like doctors and rocket scientists.

16:33

Doctors who do doctoring in space,

16:35

probably are at the pinnacle of that. - Yeah, and I mean, until Trump took office,

16:39

lawyers used to be smart. - Oh God.

16:41

(laughing) - Don't take legal advice from a podcast

16:44

or CD doctor, lawyer people.

16:48

- Giuliani. - Giuliani.

16:50

The reality is that yeah, you're trained

16:52

in an incredibly highly achieving field.

16:55

Let's not forget to bend Carson as a doctor, and that fool thinks that the pyramids in Egypt

16:59

were grain storage for aliens. - That's right.

17:02

- You can be a really accomplished person

17:04

at a really difficult field and still be a big old dummy.

17:06

It's easy to forget he's a doctor when you think pyramid green silence.

17:10

So anyway, that's the concern, right? It lends an air of credibility to be able to say that Medicare or Medicaid,

17:15

a governmental service with treatments purportedly overseen by regulatory

17:19

agencies like the FDA approve of acupuncture.

17:22

It lends authority to acupuncturists and other quacks to be able to say that they

17:26

work with talk at or even visit prestigious institutions.

17:29

It's why well known medical institutions like Harvard Medical on the Mayo Clinic

17:32

are pressure to investigate all med claims. like Harvard has a department of placebo studies

17:37

run by three people who are chronically wrong about everything, but it's Harvard.

17:40

- So their job is to be, oh, we're gonna try this, oh, we failed.

17:43

Just like every other time we've ever tried to study.

17:46

- Yeah, well, you know, the nice thing about that is that they not only get to decide the input data,

17:49

they also get to decide the output data, so they've never failed.

17:52

They've just discovered things like some placebos are more powerful in Germany.

17:55

(laughing) I guess because DOS sugar is better than the sugar.

18:01

I don't, I mean. - Yeah. It's the solar radiation and how it hits the earth.

18:05

Yeah, I would do a terrible job of just listening to the

18:08

Skeptors of the K, anything that the Waposebo, these

18:10

planes are better than that. But like, the placebo was the inert prevention that does nothing that is designed to help

18:15

you gauge active things against, right?

18:17

Yeah, troll. You need to control. It's a literally a control. And so there's a great example of

18:21

this, but I won't go into it because I'm planning to do it

18:23

for another show in the future. But there was a study done on

18:28

knee surgery, right? And so half the people in the study got

18:31

this new knee surgery done and half the people on the study, they got the incision made,

18:35

nothing was done, they closed it back up, right? It's the sham group or the control

18:38

group or whatever. And so the results came back and both groups did basically the same.

18:43

Okay, so the surgery didn't work. Which is why they don't do it anymore and all research into it basically stopped.

18:48

Okay. Unless you talk to the placebo nutters, in which case the placebo intervention was as

18:53

good as the surgical intervention, therefore you can do orthoscopic fucking placebos.

18:58

So I could just give you a scar on your knee and your legs.

19:00

- Yeah, all I have to do is give you a sugar pill

19:02

and a pat on the back and that'll cure your otherwise

19:05

surgically required intervention.

19:07

- My wife works for an orthopedic clinic.

19:09

I think with this knowledge, I can just open one up

19:12

back of my car. - All you have to do is make vague statements

19:16

instead of medical claims. That's literally the end of it.

19:19

- And I can quote Harvard. - And you can quote Harvard or the Mayo Clinic,

19:22

both of which do include a page on acupuncture

19:25

that says it's probably good as a complimentary,

19:27

it's probably helpful when used with.

19:29

It probably poses no danger too. - Probably.

19:32

- You know, it's a whole lot of like, yeah, we're not gonna take a stance on this

19:35

because like actual scientists don't draw hard lines

19:38

and also funding. - Oh, so that's the other reason it's able to sneak

19:41

through too is because scientists aren't willing

19:43

to say no to anything because they're scientists

19:46

'cause that's how science works. - Well, right, it's the commonly misunderstood definition

19:50

of a theory, right? Like the theory of gravity.

19:52

Well, you know, like. (laughing)

19:54

- Science is a theory until we can disprove it.

19:56

- Right, Sith deal in absolutes.

19:58

Yes, yes, yes. That's a whole different category of profession.

20:02

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20:06

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20:11

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20:26

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20:37

yowades.org and thank you so much for listening, sharing and donating. I don't know what I

20:42

could do to thank you properly. Generally speaking, they do real science and

20:50

don't deal in absolutes, which allows Naturopaths on their ilk to say, "See, this group don't

20:54

denounce us outright therefore we've got something going on.

20:58

You're just playing on the fact that scientists are scientists.

21:00

So proximity to real qualifications, engenders faith in pseudoscience,

21:04

and the snake oil salesman know it. So does insurance cover acupuncture.

21:08

Oh damn, Skippy they do. Did you think that any insurance company in America was going to leave their piece of a

21:13

$30 billion pie untouched?

21:16

Oh yeah, because they take money from your premiums, and not everyone goes and gets

21:20

acupuncture. Yeah, middleman's got to get paid.

21:22

Okay, now I'm like, "Wouldn't it just behoove them not to pay for acupuncture?

21:26

Because then they don't have to shell out any money." Oh, no.

21:29

Yeah, no, there's a lot of it. Yeah, they got to take their bit in there somewhere.

21:33

Yeah, insurance is not a non-profit organization.

21:36

Turns out, no. Blue-clarous blue-shield covers acupuncture for, according to their health plans 101 site,

21:43

chronic pain that does not respond to, quote, "other forms of treatment like drugs or

21:46

physical therapy," end quote, and, quote, "Naja due to surgery or chemotherapy," end

21:50

In other words, they'll cover acupuncture as long as you either are or have tried everything else and you're still solidly in them.

21:57

Yeah, we got nothing so we might as well kind of camp, which sounds vaguely familiar.

22:01

I does and also as dumb as it is and it is just a waste of money and I'm sure you're gonna get into the dangers.

22:08

At this point I'm like, "Well if nothing else works, what's the harm, right?"

22:11

Oh yeah, yeah, and if nothing else you're placating the suffering, which at least makes them less noisy.

22:16

- Yep, there is that. And if you do puncture the lung and they die,

22:19

don't to shell out any money for them anymore. - Mm.

22:22

Yes. (both laughing) UnitedHealthcare is a Medicare Advantage policy

22:26

guideline details briefly that they will cover more or less

22:29

the same, lower back pain as its chronic

22:31

and as long as it's not associated with surgery

22:33

or pregnancy and is nonspecific, which is defined as having a non-systemic cause,

22:38

that is, it's not caused by or associated with

22:41

a metastatic inflammatory or infectious kind of,

22:43

- Okay. - You know, anything under those categories. Given that, they'll cover 12 visits in 90 days and up to 8 sessions more if the patient

22:50

demonstrates an improvement, up to a hard limit of 20, which something tells me they

22:54

don't get to 20 very often. That's a lot of poaks.

22:57

Either way, all this, again, boils down to "Nah, nothing else works, so here's something

23:02

that'll shut you up." He's like "Mwah, why not?"

23:04

Yeah, we got no other ideas, get out of my office.

23:07

Speaking of Medicaid, those United guidelines come directly to us from section 1864A1A of

23:14

the Social Security Act, which itself suggests

23:16

that you refer to the National Coverage Determination

23:19

Section 30.3.3 for specific coverage criteria.

23:23

- I like it how Social Security and Insurance Companies

23:25

make it really easy for me to know what I can

23:27

and can't get the exact price I have to pay. - Oh, it's so great, isn't it?

23:30

Yeah, it's nice that it's all laid out in a chart nowhere.

23:32

Yeah, you just do it and then sometimes you go bankrupt.

23:36

(laughs) Sometimes you're too bored to live.

23:39

- Yep, that's how that works. It was nice though that they gave us these exact bullets

23:43

because I could go read them. - Good.

23:46

- Medicaid will, following a 2020 Center for Medicare

23:48

and Medicaid Services or CMS,

23:51

decision to fight the opioid epidemic,

23:54

cover acupuncture for lower back pain.

23:56

They'll cover 20 treatments per calendar year

23:58

from a, quote, "masters or doctoral level degree

24:01

in acupuncture or internal," quote,

24:03

Oriental Medicine, internal, quoted.

24:06

From a school accredited by the Accreditation Commission

24:10

on Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, end quote.

24:12

- I just update your name, guys.

24:15

- What the fuck? - Yeah, first that. But second, we just went over how this doesn't work,

24:22

how real doctors and real scientists

24:24

are not going to say it works. - No.

24:27

- They're not gonna say it doesn't work, because it's just the nature of them.

24:29

But they're not gonna say it works. And yet you can find an accredited university.

24:33

You can get a master's or a doctorate and needling people?

24:36

- Well, you can get a master's or a doctorate

24:39

from an organization accredited by ACAOM,

24:43

which is, I don't know, Shane, have you ever been part of a professional organization?

24:48

I'm part of a few professional organizations.

24:51

- There's a couple here and there that I have tested to do.

24:54

- A lot of teeth on those are there. - I mean, there's a lot of things you gotta do

24:58

to jump through a bunch of hoops. There's like advisory boards,

25:01

like it lose my licensure. Like that kind of, I thought that makes sense

25:04

with all professionals, right? - Yeah, like as a teacher, you know, there's others,

25:07

But that teaching license is backed by the,

25:10

what do you wanna call it, government? - Government, well, for example.

25:13

- Well, we still have an education department.

25:15

- For now. The rest of this stuff, like my technical certifications,

25:20

for example, are all just on the back of a company

25:22

whose job it is to provide certifications.

25:24

And let's not suggest that those are therefore invaluable

25:27

in the industry, obviously, my having them has been a benefit to my career as an acupunctureist

25:32

would say of the accreditation commission

25:34

on acupuncture and oriental medicine, I'm sure. But this is not like a medical degree, right?

25:40

This is a group of people who exist

25:42

under the acronym they chose and give out licenses.

25:46

So this would be like if all the IT professionals

25:48

got together and this, or like if all of the accreditation

25:51

people got together and decided, we need to make some more money.

25:54

So everyone that works with computers now has to pass

25:56

this test. Everyone else goes, we need money too, let's do it.

25:59

- Let's do it. It's a school, so maybe schools are the best analogy.

26:03

A state institution like the University of Wyoming

26:06

has to be accredited. And those accreditation boards are, again, for the time that it exists,

26:11

at least tangentially related to the Department of Education and other, you know, international

26:14

bodies, right? Yeah. And I kind of, I kind of assume, especially with like state colleges and whatnot and stuff

26:20

that all of those accreditation is just making sure that each university when you get, when

26:24

you get an engineering degree, you're all kind of on along the same level and you can

26:28

all start at a base level. That's the idea.

26:30

Okay. 100%, right?

26:32

institutions that are air quotes accredited by organizations like the Southern Baptist Convention

26:38

because it's a Christian school that teaches you the earth is 6,000 years old.

26:41

So they're also accredited? Yeah, different. Those two uses of the phrase accreditation?

26:46

Maybe they're not the same. I was guys. I was

26:49

still weren't accredited. I heard. Yeah, they're still accredited. Turns out that that is not a

26:53

legally protected term. Much much like was the quote here. Doctor level level. Doctor level.

27:01

Oh yeah, turns out that when you put a hyphen in a qualifier on something...

27:05

[laughter]

27:07

So I looked at this qualification, by the way, and I will be coming back to it.

27:11

But for now I'll just leave it at "these people are not doctors and they are not masters of anything."

27:18

Except maybe bullshit.

27:20

Stop beating. Ehh...

27:22

[laughter] I'm 12 and that's hilarious.

27:25

These changes in coverage come directly and explicitly from policy changes designed to fight the previous terrible decision the federal government made

27:31

Saturating the market with opioids quote expanding options for pain treatment is a key piece of the Trump administration's strategy for defeating our country's opioid crisis

27:40

Then US Department of Health and Human Services secretary Alex Azar said in a statement continuing president Trump has promised to protect and improve Medicare for seniors and

27:50

Deciding to cover this new treatment option is another sign of that commitment

27:54

Medicare beneficiaries will now have the option at their disposal to help them deal with chronic low back pain,

28:00

which is a common and sometimes debilitating condition in quote and all those audible six or his.

28:06

So yeah, this was pushed through as a well, I guess we better do something about it.

28:11

Like we're not going to regulate further regulate opioids. We're not going to invest in efficacious alternatives.

28:17

But we've got this thing that's good at shutting hurting people up.

28:21

Thanks Biden. right this was Biden's fault again you said right yeah yeah yeah it's weird how he got that done when he wasn't the president

28:29

he did so much shit while Trump was president like no wonder what should be up to say it turns out he's one of those lizard people that controls things from the shadows

28:37

but that I will now prove what a high class host I am by ignoring the obvious parallels this essay could be drawing between Trump and Mao Zedong

28:46

and I deserve a goddamn medal for it.

28:48

[laughter] Continuing the quote,

28:51

"While a small number of adults 65 years of age or older

28:53

have been enrolled in published acupuncture studies,

28:56

patients with chronic low back pain in these studies

28:58

showed improvements in function and pain."

29:01

And then they linked the studies. -Oh, good.

29:03

So we can see how accurate and how well done they are.

29:06

-Yeah. -And what is that? Peer review.

29:08

-Peer review? Definitely there's some of that, and then I am somebody's peer and reviewed them.

29:13

-I was going to say, if all your peers are equally

29:15

as dumb as you is peer reviewing really mean anything turns out that's one of

29:18

the big problems with the period process

29:21

yeah there's some there's some chiropractors that should be in jail for

29:25

murder in the u_k_ who i got peer reviewed right out of that problem

29:29

who could yes i mean they did they linked the studies and so the first

29:32

link goes to the national center for complimentary and interpretive health

29:36

the not doctors i think complimentary means inter integrative and

29:40

complimentary those are those words used when you can't just say medicine

29:44

I was like integrative so in conjunction with something else,

29:47

complementary in conjunction with something else. This is medicine that doesn't work.

29:51

This is medicine they give you while you're on real medicine.

29:53

Real medicine. That's what that said. They're the not doctors at the NIH.

29:56

The study is titled page not found.

29:59

The page you're looking for is unavailable. Awesome.

30:01

Yeah, it was brief and concluded that I should email info at nccih.nih.gov

30:07

to let them know that the page I was trying to access isn't.

30:10

Oh, yeah. - Yeah, it was very, very, the methodology was really brief.

30:14

- Did you contact the anti-nature?

30:16

- Did not bother with that. Did not, did not bother.

30:20

- I would just love if they sent back a response.

30:22

Nope, that's the page you're looking for. - Yeah, it turns out.

30:24

- Well, now the second link though was a bit more promising.

30:27

It went to the Mayo Clinic's clinical trials research page.

30:31

- Now, is this the actual Mayo Clinic, or is this the mayonnaise clinic?

30:34

- Thank you, Dr. Hellman. (laughing)

30:38

- We sort of stop heart attack. - No, we lubricate the triplet Dr. Helman's

30:42

is that if you eat enough of it, the blood will slide through a little bit more.

30:46

It's a study in viscosity, really.

30:49

No, so the study is seeking participants.

30:53

- The study isn't started yet? They link to study that has it started?

30:56

- It's been seeking participants for like four years. - Oh, so, so that's just a big old nobody note.

31:01

- Nobody, nobody note. - It's called acupuncture therapy

31:04

for COVID related olfactory loss,

31:06

which is admittedly to my untrained mind

31:10

of not about lower back pain. - That is not, which means your insurance won't pay for it.

31:14

- Which means your insurance won't pay for it. And also why the hell?

31:16

Like why? - Where do they stick needles for you to smell better?

31:20

- I don't want a needle in my nose. - I do not want a needle in my nose.

31:23

Really what this was was a case study

31:25

in the Trump administration and indeed general Republican lawmaking

31:29

and their reporters at the OEM in Fox

31:32

not clicking the links.

31:34

This was a, "Hey, look, we did this thing."

31:36

as these studies don't click the links, say,

31:39

and yeah, nobody clicked the links.

31:41

- Yeah. - Shocking, I know. Anywho. (laughs)

31:45

(laughs) So I did some Googling,

31:48

and the JAMA Open Access Journal has a host of researchers

31:52

from the University of Pennsylvania's Pearlman School of Medicine,

31:55

Department of Psychiatry, ran a meta-study of sorts to find out

32:00

just what state the insurance coverage of acupuncture is.

32:03

- Okay. - Yeah. And I am confident that they found out exactly what was covered, where, when, and why, because

32:11

"Dr. Nelson in dusk report receiving partial support through grant UA number blah blah blah

32:17

from the acupuncture in emergency department for pain from the National Center for Complementary

32:23

and Integrative Health National Institutes of Health.

32:25

Dr. Dusk reported receiving a philanthropic gift to the University Hospitals from the

32:30

Fowler Family Foundation that provided support for Dr. Dusk's time on the article during

32:34

the conduct of the study, no other disclosures were reported.

32:38

Now normally this would be a giant glaring red flag.

32:42

Isn't that an idea? Oh, thank you for doing this study because you came in favor of my study.

32:47

Here's a million dollars. Yeah. Thank you for doing the study.

32:50

We paid you to do. We supplied the materials for we supplied the workspace for and we

32:55

wind and dined you. That's what that last half is.

32:58

Yeah. That last half is we gave you kickbacks.

33:00

I said, OK, I did hear that correct. So normally that would be a giant red flag, but given the fact that this is people wanting to sell acupuncture,

33:08

paying people to study where they can sell acupuncture,

33:11

I feel pretty confident that they got the area right.

33:14

It was fine. Yeah. So as far as analyzing a study goes, finding that the nutters seeking to sell their snake oil paid for the study

33:20

and smoothed all the researchers as about as big red flag as you can get.

33:24

But in this case, it also stands to reason that they were very motivated indeed to find gaps in billable coverage

33:29

for their greedy needle-bearing masters.

33:31

The study was done in the lead up to the aforementioned 2022 policy change,

33:36

providing Medicare and Medicaid funding for acupuncture.

33:39

They found through Hayward J.

33:41

Jones, MC, Compton, MD at all coverage of nano-pharmacological treatments for

33:47

lower back pain in the US public and private insurers.

33:49

JAMA, new open journal, you can find the link in the show notes.

33:52

That about a third of some 45 commercial Medicaid and Medicare

33:57

Advantage health plan insurers covered acupuncture.

34:00

Given the 2020 coverage changes, that number will have grown significantly,

34:03

if not just be all of them, right?

34:05

Being in order to maintain compliance and ensure

34:07

we'd need to meet those requirements I listed above the 20 visits, right?

34:11

So we could say that all Medicare and Medicaid insurers

34:14

in the United States now allow for some type of acupuncture,

34:18

at least from my admittedly, I'm neither a doctor nor an insurance expert,

34:22

but it's in black and white. Like it's pretty straightforward.

34:25

I feel pretty confident in this. Returning to the study,

34:28

Those surveyed, and yes, that is the second giant red flag.

34:32

This was a self-reported survey. Self-reported survey.

34:35

They found that in 2010, 0.4% of respondents

34:39

had seen an acupuncturist at least once.

34:41

In 2019, so nine years later,

34:44

that number was doubled to 0.8,

34:46

which is a staggering growth, right?

34:48

Like 0.4 to 0.8 doesn't seem like much

34:51

until you confuse your... That's twice.

34:53

- Yeah, that's twice. - That's in a decade we've doubled our market.

34:56

That's pretty good. But I also think it gives a clue as to why estimations

35:02

for the future value of acupuncture are so astronomically high, right?

35:06

Because it's doubled in a decade, so it's just gonna keep going up from there.

35:09

It doubled in a decade. And also we haven't crossed the 1% participation market,

35:13

which means that there is still a 99% market share to be had.

35:16

Okay, that does make sense. I mean, and obviously an economics person

35:19

would cringe at that math, but simply put.

35:22

Yeah. Of the 1,344 acupuncture ease,

35:26

meaning that the study was, they don't disclose this,

35:29

but quick math, right? The study included 168,000 people contacted, right?

35:34

So, you know, a phone call or an email or whatever.

35:36

- Pin cushions. - Yeah, exactly. 69% were female and 57% were white,

35:41

which tracks with the goopy nature of women's health care.

35:44

- I was gonna say, I feel like white women and white men

35:47

are who get to actually puncture.

35:49

But that is, most women aren't believed, or if they are, their pain isn't taken as

35:53

seriously resulting in referrals or desperate cold calls to acupuncturists, who will at

35:58

least give you more quality one on one time.

36:01

Now obviously this is a tragic example of medical sexism, but also a frustrating example

36:06

of how quickly women in pain are being ignored and discounted and then turning to anyone

36:10

who will give them the time of day. Which is why it comes to R inbox, right?

36:16

- God damn. - I mean, 0.4 to 0.8.

36:19

- Yeah, the study found that spending on acupuncture risk

36:22

was $593 on mean in 2010,

36:25

and roughly twice that at 1,000, 2,157 cents in 2019.

36:29

Of that, insurance actually seemed to pay for very little.

36:32

Out of pocket was $357 and 51 cents in 2010,

36:37

up to $554 in 2019.

36:40

The difference wasn't statistically significant,

36:42

and the increase was largely attributed

36:44

the average frequency increase per acupuncture user from 5.4 to 8.2 visits per calendar year.

36:51

Briefly, this means that about a third of insurers cover less than half the costs of

36:55

acupuncture while insurance. Insurance coverage from 2010 to 2019 rose by about 9%.

37:00

The study also briefly touches on acupuncture being a low sunk cost than most pharmaceuticals,

37:05

meaning that if your company's product is profitable, by way of not helping people,

37:11

You're probably all in on recommending TCM.

37:14

Still, half of all respondents reported no coverage

37:16

for their acupuncture, meaning that they paid the full cost

37:19

out of pocket for pointing nothing.

37:21

So insurance covers it, yes, but it doesn't cover it well.

37:24

Insurance is covering it a little bit more,

37:26

but it is in their best interest to keep coverage low,

37:30

because unlike real medicine, they're out less

37:33

in terms of actually having to recompense

37:35

a hospital or a doctor, right? Accupuncture is more expensive for you

37:40

and cheaper for them and then real medication.

37:44

- So, oh, that's, yeah.

37:46

Higher profit margin on the non-standardized nothing.

37:49

- This just keeps making more and more sense. - Yeah.

37:52

- It's good business if your business is wantonly a moral.

37:55

- Capitalism. - So does acupuncture work?

37:58

- No, of course not. Of course not.

38:01

I don't know, the acupuncture I got done last year,

38:04

which was just one needle that was filled

38:06

with the COVID vaccine. - Oh yeah, that worked really well.

38:09

That one was really efficacious.

38:11

I even got a few more of those. - Yeah, I did it.

38:13

- It turns out, but no, so of course it doesn't do anything

38:16

and I will already come back to the,

38:19

like I'll come back to the back pain thing. I've already started working on a story

38:22

for an upcoming episode. But until then, we can say that insurance coverage

38:25

of acupuncture is a sign of it being a valuable treatment.

38:28

Sure, as long as by valuable, you mean profitable and not efficacious.

38:32

- Yes. - Basically, it would seem that acupuncture

38:35

was created and sustained by people who had kind of nothing to lose, adopted by despots,

38:39

seeking to dull the anguished cries of their dying people,

38:42

and now promoted by charlatans and amoral corporate entities,

38:45

looking to make a buck off of the back pain of the desperate.

38:48

Most insurers covered acupuncture in a, "Eh, well, nothing else has worked

38:51

and we have to refer you somewhere approach," until the Trump administration carved out an exemption for it

38:56

during COVID to try to win some points

38:58

with a population suffering and dying needlessly,

39:00

which I think is where we started this story with Orange Mel.

39:04

- (chuckles) I think we did. Now they're suffering and dying needlessly,

39:07

but more broke than they were before. But more broke and there's a larger

39:12

and worse industry making more money.

39:15

It's important to note, like I would love my orange mile comment to be like,

39:18

ah, I really tied all this together.

39:20

But the real tying all of this together

39:22

is that we don't take women in pain seriously,

39:25

so this is what they're left with. We don't take women seriously at all.

39:28

That is a shitty, true caveat.

39:31

(laughing) Yay!

39:34

Alright, well I hope everybody enjoyed my taking the piss out of acupuncture and I'm sorry that it ended on such a

39:39

melancholy note Yeah, but you know if you are a patron listener you can stay tuned and get a fun what the fuck Canada story that

39:47

That's true. Next that we learned some things about Canadian military stuff

39:51

terrible in world war one scary scary. Yeah, it turns out that you know what what's the doctor say good men don't need rules

40:01

Right everybody's like oh Canada's so polite like for a reason

40:05

They have to be like here's the rule right like if you're out at the bar and it looks like you're about to get in a fight

40:11

There's generally two kinds of people you're gonna get in a fight with the loud guy jumping around ripping his shirt off

40:16

Talking about how much of an alpha melee is and the really quiet calm guy now look I don't want to fight either

40:21

But if I have to pick I'm fighting the loud dude

40:24

Yeah, cuz he's bouncing all over the place. I can probably kick him in the shin so the quiet dude

40:30

When you got nuts, you don't have to flex them. Don't get that is true.

40:33

I heard that in a song somewhere.

40:36

Alright everybody, well I'm Aaron and I'd like to take a moment to thank all of our listeners,

40:43

especially those that stuck around. Thank you.

40:45

Supporters, big thanks to those of you who stuck around and we do have a

40:50

while way it's coming up here at the end of April.

40:52

And while we realize that our absence has made the coffers somewhat more

40:56

poultry than usual, please for us to share that your donations that didn't go to hosting fees

41:00

and this bounty of $5 pizza will be going to uh, wire-ways.

41:05

Heck yeah, I'm super excited this year. Yeah, it's good. So thank you, thank you for your

41:08

support for listening and of course to my delightful co-host, Shay, for that history lesson.

41:12

Oh yeah. Yeah, what the fuck, Canada? What the fuck, Canada? Yeah, if you want to know

41:16

what the fuck, Canada, join at patreon.com/iit. Yeah. Yeah. And if you'd like to know more

41:22

more about the show, find our social links, contact information, or chat with us.

41:25

Was it interesting if true? Dot com.

41:28

Dot com. Man, I wish they hadn't given up that.

41:30

That's such good marketing. It really was.

41:32

It really was. Like it sticks like it's like 20 years later and I'm still doing.

41:36

It's still there. Is that what it was?

41:38

I thought it was. Was it was it was it was it was it?

41:41

Go Daddy. I can't remember.

41:43

I think it was expedient. I just can't remember this one.

41:45

Yeah, I just remember the dot com. Yeah, yeah.

41:47

Right. Well, so maybe it wasn't such a brilliant marketing.

41:49

Well, I mean, it was if it was still on TV, we'd know exactly what it was.

41:52

But like you said, it's been 10 years. You know that also was an accomplished earworm?

41:55

Yes, yes. There wasn't a...

41:57

Damn. Final whereabouts about the show, social links, and contact information at interestingiftour.com.

42:05

Music for the episode was created by Wayne Jones and was used with permission.

42:08

The opinions, views, and nonsense expressed on the show are those of the hosts only

42:11

and do not represent any other people, organizations, or life forms,

42:14

all rights reserved, Interesting of True 2020.

42:16

(upbeat music)

42:18

(upbeat music)