The first known British acupuncturist was John Churchill who, in 1821, published a series of results on the treatment of tympany [ear infections or deafness] and rheumatism with acupuncture.
Acupuncture has become increasingly popular since the early 1970s when travel restrictions between the East and West were eased.
It is hard to estimate the number of acupuncturists in Britain as the practice is unregulated. The British Acupuncture Council, the UK’s largest body of professional acupuncturists, has about 3,000 members.
In the UK, the country’s health service offers limited acupuncture and most patients pay for private treatment. Currently, official health bodies only recommend acupuncture as a treatment option for lower back pain.
Conclusive evidence of its effectiveness has proved hard to establish. Some studies suggested that acupuncture can slightly improve the chances of a woman become pregnant during IVF treatment. But others found it made no difference.
There have been similarly mixed results on the affects of acupuncture on arthritis. Two studies on osteoarthritis of the knee found that the procedure helped, but more recent research found there wasn’t much difference between people having acupuncture or sham (placebo) acupuncture.
Trials on treatment for headaches took into account the placebo effect by comparing authentic acupuncture to a sham procedure. Overall traditional acupuncture produced slightly better results.
Last week Joseph Nye, the well-known China scholar, wrote on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s website about how war over Taiwan might be averted. He noted that years ago he was on a team that met with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), “whose previous ‘unofficial’ visit to the US had caused a crisis in which China fired missiles into the sea and the US deployed carriers off the coast of Taiwan.” Yes, that’s right, mighty Chen caused that crisis all by himself. Neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China (PRC) exercised any agency. Nye then nostalgically invoked the comical specter
Relations between Taiwan and the Czech Republic have flourished in recent years. However, not everyone is pleased about the growing friendship between the two countries. Last month, an incident involving a Chinese diplomat tailing the car of vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) in Prague, drew public attention to the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) operations to undermine Taiwan overseas. The trip was not Hsiao’s first visit to the Central European country. It was meant to be low-key, a chance to meet with local academics and politicians, until her police escort noticed a car was tailing her through the Czech capital. The
April 15 to April 21 Yang Kui (楊逵) was horrified as he drove past trucks, oxcarts and trolleys loaded with coffins on his way to Tuntzechiao (屯子腳), which he heard had been completely destroyed. The friend he came to check on was safe, but most residents were suffering in the town hit the hardest by the 7.1-magnitude Hsinchu-Taichung Earthquake on April 21, 1935. It remains the deadliest in Taiwan’s recorded history, claiming around 3,300 lives and injuring nearly 12,000. The disaster completely flattened roughly 18,000 houses and damaged countless more. The social activist and
Over the course of former President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) 11-day trip to China that included a meeting with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping (習近平) a surprising number of people commented that the former president was now “irrelevant.” Upon reflection, it became apparent that these comments were coming from pro-Taiwan, pan-green supporters and they were expressing what they hoped was the case, rather than the reality. Ma’s ideology is so pro-China (read: deep blue) and controversial that many in his own Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) hope he retires quickly, or at least refrains from speaking on some subjects. Regardless