A tug-of-war over scraps ∞

Jason Silvernail, PT, regarding a plea to help defeat legislation to make dry needling of trigger points the exclusive domain of acupuncturists:

This is the kind of pointless turf war foolishness that the licensure system encourages. Remember it has nothing to do with evidence and everything to do with lobbying and economic protectionism.

Definitely. It’s important context that acupuncturists are struggling to preserve their reputation as the evidence piles up and overflows: acupuncture can’t beat a placebo. This is a blatant attempt to lay exclusive claim to a superficially similar treatment method that has the appearance of being more evidence based, because it is currently practiced by many physical therapists and doctors. Unfortunately and ironically, it isn’t based on much evidence — at best, it’s only more plausible. Acupuncture isn’t even worth testing any more — it’s all over — whereas dry needling still needs to be properly tested. Nowhere in this legal battle can you find anything of clear value to fight over: it’s a tug-of-war over scraps.

Nevertheless, I have no trouble picking a side …