More Shoddy Reporting on Alternative Medicine from the CBC

Television being what it is, it can be rather difficult to research the stories presented. I don’t record the television news and at my age, my memory is a good deal less than perfect.

What I do remember from the Wednesday, December 16 edition of the CBC Television News at 6:00, is someone telling me that acupuncture cures migraine headaches. Not for everyone mind you, but definitely for some people. I remember there was no qualifiers to this. It wasn’t that someone was claiming acupuncture cures migraines. It was a definitive statement by the reporter – acupuncture cures migraines for some people.

It is pure nonsense of course, but I couldn’t help wonder what evidence the reporter had, to substantiate the claim.  I could be wrong in my assessment after all. Perhaps some new research had demonstrated a strong link between acupuncture and pain relief. It would have to be new research, because after twenty years of past research, acupuncture has failed to show positive pain relief much beyond a placebo.

So I called  CBC News in Calgary to find out what new evidence had become available.

Turns out – none.  Demonstrating the investigative depth of a dinner plate, reporter Shilta Acharya Dowton  solicited the opinion of a local acupuncturist and simply presented as fact, what she had been told. That’s it, nothing else.  No fact checking nor any soliciting of alternate viewpoints (such as those by a real medical doctor).

As ASkepticRTN readers know, I am a Certified Reiki Master.  I wonder if CBC News would do a story on how my manipulation of personal energy fields can increase the wealth of some people? (Not all people mind you, just Reiki Masters.)  Maybe there is a McDonald’s restaurant franchise owner out there claiming a large fries and coke cures cancer. That would be worth a feature spot on the National I’ll bet. Why would they say it if it weren’t true?

Unfortunately,  upon leaving the woo-woo world of the CBC and returning back to Earth, acupuncture still doesn’t cure much of anything. True, acupuncturists and the gullible say otherwise. But then, who are you going to believe – some acupuncturist or a Certified Reiki Master?