in ACC and Acupuncture, Acupuncture, Alternative Medicine, Health and Medicine, New Zealand, Society for Science Based Healthcare 1,693 Words

ACC and Acupuncture 3

I’ve written a couple of times in the past about ACC and Acupuncture:

To summarise, in 2014 a couple of Official Information Act (OIA) requests to ACC uncovered information about how much they had spent on acupuncture treatments over the past decade, as well as a more detailed breakdown of how much was spent on acupuncture used for different categories of injury (the detailed breakdown also included data for 2013/2014).

Information released in parliament in 2004 also revealed how much money ACC spent on acupuncture in the decade from 1994-2004, as well as projections on how much they expected to spend on acupuncture from 2004-2009.

As you can see from the chart below, their projections turned out to be rather inaccurate, and ACC spending on acupuncture has been absolutely booming:

ACC Acupuncture 1994-2014

In August, I submitted my own OIA request asking for:

copies of or links to all literature reviews regarding the effectiveness of acupuncture for any condition undertaken by ACC

I was told that:

There are only two ACC literature reviews on the efficacy of acupuncture.

It was with this information that I wrote my previous two posts on this topic. Here are the important parts of those reviews’ conclusions:

The evidence for the effectiveness of acupuncture is most convincing for the treatment of chronic neck and shoulder pain. In terms of other injuries, the evidence is either inconclusive or insufficient.

There is limited good quality evidence to conclusively determine acupuncture’s efficacy in treatment of mental health conditions such as Major Depressive Disorder, Dysthymia, Anxiety Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

When I went to write on this topic again last year during “Acupuncture Awareness Week”, I found two more ACC literature reviews on the efficacy of acupuncture (as well as other treatments) on the ACC website:

On the topic of acupuncture, these reviews concluded that:

The evidence is either weak or absent for:
…
acupuncture

current evidence does not support the use of acupuncture to treat people with [Traumatic Brain Injury].

Feeling rather frustrated that ACC’s response to my earlier request (which arrived less than 2 weeks before last year’s September election) was apparently false, I sent a more specific followup:

I would like to reiterate my request to be provided with copies of or links to all literature reviews regarding the effectiveness of acupuncture for any condition undertaken by ACC. For the sake of clarity, I would like to be explicit that this includes both reviews that looked at several treatment options including acupuncture, and reviews that were commissioned by ACC as well as those directly undertaken by ACC.

I hope anyone reading this would agree that this followup should absolutely not have been necessary, and all the information I was requesting here should have been provided in ACC’s response to my original request before they’d be breaking the law.

However, when ACC finally acknowledged my request over a week after having received it, they maintained that “the information provided to [me] on 3 September 2014 was complete” and that this was therefore a new, separate OIA request. Because of the break over summer, this gave them until the 20th of January to respond to my request.

At 4 o’clock in the afternoon on the 20th of January, I heard back from ACC with an answer that essentially felt like “find the information yourself, it’s online”. Instead of providing me with copies of or links to any reviews, they told me the name of one review commissioned by ACC and that it could be found online, and provided me with 2 links to pages on their website that listed all of their reviews.

Interestingly, although I don’t believe the 2011 review has been released except in response to an OIA request, it was not mentioned in ACC’s response and they told me that:

ACC does not hold any other information that has not been published.

Having taken some time to go through all the reviews found on the pages I was linked to in order to find all those which mention acupuncture, I came up with the following list. As well as a link to the review and its title and date where I could find one, I am quoting the relevant conclusions below.

Although they have told me so incorrectly in the past, I have ACC’s word that these are all the ACC literature reviews that evaluate acupuncture. As you can see, they are inconclusive or negative for all but a few specific conditions: Frozen shoulder, chronic neck pain, chronic shoulder pain.

In 2014 ACC spent $30,000 on acupuncture to treat burns, $59,000 on acupuncture for concussion and brain injury, and $591,000 on acupuncture for fracture and dislocation. They apparently spent $22,592,000 on acupuncture for soft tissue injuries, but I find it highly unlikely that all of this money was used to treat frozen shoulder, chronic neck pain, and chronic shoulder pain.

ACC’s expenditure on acupuncture shows no sign of slowing. It grew 17% from 2011/12 to 2012/13, then a further 17% from 2012/13 to 2013/14, leaving the expenditure for 2013/14 at over $24,000,000. It’s certainly not a large part of ACC’s total expenditure, but it’s no small sum of money.

ACC is publicly funded. Publicly funded healthcare should be based on rigorous evidence. ACC does not appear to have evidence that would allow them to conclude that acupuncture is an effective treatment for any more than these conditions. It is well past time for ACC to re-evaluate their expenditure on acupuncture. It should only be funded when used to treat conditions in a way that is supported by rigorous evidence, and that is certainly not the case currently.

I will end this post the same way as I have ended my previous posts on this topic, with my recommendations for how ACC should deal with this issue:

I think ACC needs to review its funding scheme for acupuncture. I think their approach to this should start with reviewing their Acupuncture Treatment Profiles document, ensuring that the only treatments contained within it are those supported by rigorous evidence, and purging pseudoscientific claims from it. If they find they need to undertake further reviews of the evidence for the use of acupuncture for particular indications, then they should do that before approving funding for it.

I think ACC should then only agree to pay for acupuncture treatments that are aligned with their Treatment Profiles document, which they should commit to reviewing at regular intervals to keep it in line with the latest evidence (I’m not sure what time interval would be most appropriate, and I understand that there is a cost involved in that work).

I’m not sure, but it’s possible some changes to legislation may be required before this becomes a reality, but if that’s the case those changes should happen. A government body should not be bound by law to fund healthcare that is not supported by evidence.

There’s one last thing I’d also like to see, although I really feel like this is a long shot. I think ACC should take an active role in discouraging healthcare practice based on the “pre-scientific notions” described in their 2011 review. I think they should do this by distancing themselves from those acupuncturists who promote it and who base their practice on it, by refusing to grant them status as registered ACC practitioners if they are found to rely on it.

One thought on “ACC and Acupuncture 3”

  1. Pingback: Laughable “science” for ACC $24 million acupuncture waste | Kevin McCready

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