Data indicates treatment is more than a placebo, but differences between true and sham acupuncture are modest
- a potential problem with the trials in the meta-analysis was that, in all cases, the therapist knew whether he or she was administering real or sham acupuncture. "Arguably, it is next to impossible to completely keep this information from the patient. In other words, a trial is either both patient and therapist-blind, or not blind at all. Acupuncturists tend to tell us that therapist blinding is impossible, but this is clearly not true. I fear that, once we manage to eliminate this bias from acupuncture studies, we might find that the effects of acupuncture exclusively are a placebo response."
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