WHAT'S NEW Thursday, December 23, 2004

WHAT'S NEW   Robert L. Park   Friday, 24 Dec 04   Washington, DC

1. ACUPUNCTURE: RESEARCHER FINDS THE HAYSTACK IS FULL OF NEEDLES.
Huge breakthrough?  A University of Maryland researcher, who has
been touting acupuncture for the last 17 years, now reports it may
actually work   sort of.  Here's the picture: a few thousand years
before it was known that blood circulates or germs cause disease,
doctors who had never dissected a frog, claimed that yin and yang
could be balanced by inserting needles into the right points, among
the hundreds of points strung along 12 meridians.  They called it
"acupuncture," from the Latin acus, needle and punctus, prick. 
Which is odd, because they were Chinese.  But if they figured out
acupuncture, they must have been smart enough to learn Latin. 
Scientists today can't even find the meridians.  A Maryland study of
570 elderly patients who suffer from arthritis of the knee, found
that 6 months of acupuncture modestly reduced pain and improved
agility.  Six months?  Why not take an aspirin?  Scientists suggest
the needles stimulate release of endorphins.  Jalapeno peppers do
the same thing.  So it wouldn't matter where you stick the needles
would it?  Then who needs an acupuncturist?

2. PAIN: CAN YOU BALANCE YOUR YIN AND YANG WITHOUT GETTING STUCK?
It's been a great holiday season for the purveyors of alternative
cures.  First there was a flu vaccine shortage.  In addition to
Oscillococcinum, http://www.aps.org/WN/WN04/wn121004.cfm , olive
leaf extract, grapefruit seed extract, African ginger, and ionic
silver were being sold along with supposed immune-boosting multi-
vitamins to treat or prevent flu.  All of this stuff is sold under
the Dietary Supplement and Health Education Act of 1994, which means
it doesn't require FDA approval.  Then Merck recalled its popular
painkiller Vioxx, on the basis of a slight increase in heart attack
risk.  That led to similar concerns about the other big COX-2
inhibitor, Celebrex, and finally, it got down to Aleve, an over-the-
counter drug, for which the risk was barely significant.  WN
believes most chronic pain sufferers will insist they are fully
willing to accept the small risks. 

3. NASA: EVERY CANDIDATE TO REPLACE O'KEEFE IS "THE FRONTRUNNER." 
Last Friday WN mentioned two "frontrunners" to replace O'Keefe as
NASA chief: Gen. Kadish, head of the Missile Defense Agency, and
former member of Congress Bob Walker.  Well, it's getting pretty
crowded at the front.  Early Saturday morning Bob Park debated
retired Marine Major General Charles Bolden on BBC World News.  BBC
described Bolden as "the frontrunner."  CQ Today reported that Sen.
Brownback (R-KS), Space Subcommittee chair, is pushing retired Air
Force General Pete Worden, who headed the Office of Strategic
Influence  http://www.aps.org/WN/WN02/wn022202.cfm . All former
astronauts are also frontrunners.  The litmus test is a conviction
that the most important goal is Moon/Mars.

4. MISTLETOE: WN WENT SEARCHING FOR A HOLIDAY-CONNECTED STORY. Used
by the druids in exotic sacrificial ceremonies, mistletoe injections
are the latest quack cancer cure in Europe.  


THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND.  
Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the
University of Maryland, but they should be.
---
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