More Malpractice and Hogwash from Hawaii Public Radio's Dr. Kozak -- This Time It's Quackupuncture

On July 11, 2016, Kathleen Kozak, MD, had acupuncturist Joe Bright on her Hawaii Public Radio show Body Talk. Kozak and Bright assured us that he had years of training and is fully qualified to treat what ails us. He proceeded to tell a series of anecdotes about amazing results he had achieved with acupuncture. The first and last resort of a quack is the anecdote or testimonial, a little tool that allows him to make up stories. Little is said about proper scientific studies and clinical trials. Several callers told stories of their own recoveries that they attributed to Bright’s treatments. Some of them sounded like they were reading from scripts.

Bright made fantastic claims about his skill in using pulse diagnosis of pregnancy and to determine fetal sex. There is no good evidence for pulse diagnosis of anything other than a fast or slow pulse. It’s a delusion and a fraud. He also claims he can effect immediate cures of the common cold and of swine flu, though he seems to confuse the two diseases. Of course, it’s hogwash in either case.

Bright says he does a little bloodletting for certain conditions by cutting a vein behind the knee. And he cuts or pricks himself and drains blood to treat insomnia. Back to medieval times and blood-letting, courtesy of Kozak and HPR. Bright sounds like an emotionally unstable “cutter,” a person who cuts himself to relieve anxiety or depression. He might have gotten into acupuncture by way of his fascination with blades cutting and entering flesh.  

Through all this Kozak, typically, did not ask a single skeptical or intelligent question. She didn’t challenge even Bright’s most preposterous claims and practices. She certainly did not challenge the basic tenet of acupuncture’s alternative physiology that is the basis for allowing acupuncturists to practice medicine and get away with murder, sometimes literally.

We now have technology that allows us to see single molecules, but the (mythical) acupuncture points and meridians have still not been found. How could people who were barely out of the Stone Age have discovered such structures anyway? This is the myth of The Magical Chinaman. It’s all hogwash that special interest groups have used to allow them to play doctor and carve out exemptions to anti-fraud laws so they can make any health claims they want. All this is fine with Kozak.

Some people pay for this legalized fraud with their lives. Some 15 years ago an acquaintance named Raymoon regularly scolded me for my skepticism of alternative medicine, which I see as mostly a clever rebranding of quackery and fraudulent medicine. He was determined to create a school on Maui that would teach acupuncture and Chinese medicine. He said he was living proof of its wonders: a cardiologist had had him on a drug for many years to treat a congenital heart condition. The drug kept him alive, the doctor told him.

But Raymoon had also been going to an acupuncturist, who recently told him he was cured and he no longer had to take the medicine prescribed by the MD. He only needed maintenance acupuncture sessions. He quit taking the medication and gloated, “See, I’m fine, I’m cured. The medical doctor was wrong. The acupuncturist saved my life.”

A few weeks later Raymoon died of a heart attack. He was 35 years old. I managed to speak with a pathologist familiar with the case. He said Raymoon never should have died, that he was killed by the acupuncturist. Then he told me of another case he was familiar with, that of another man in his mid-30s. He had gone to an acupuncturist for an infection that should have been treated immediately with antibiotics. The acupuncturist did nothing but delay proper treatment and allow the infection to spread. The young man, who had been otherwise healthy, died a horrible death from sepsis.

The media, including public radio and public television, are largely to blame for deaths such as these. Broadcast and print coverage of acupuncture and other forms of fraudulent alternative medicine has been almost 100% positive and breathlessly promotional for decades. The public has been indoctrinated and Raymoon had no reason to doubt the claims about acupuncture; I am the only one who ever told him it was all bullshit.

All the quack systems marketed as alternative, holistic, natural or eastern are treated as sacred cows by the media. They are implicitly above all criticism, rational examination and honest discussion. There is never a serious investigative report or so much as a hint in the media that a single one of their claims might not be true. Not even the supposedly honest professionals at public radio and public television dare tell the truth.

The pathologist I spoke with said he believes there are many cases like Raymoon’s because the state law allows acupuncturists to play doctor and nobody is held accountable when things go horrible wrong, which they often do. So now we have, for example, Maui Kids Acupuncture, a clinic owned and run by acupuncturist Yumiko Freeman, who specializes in pediatrics and claims she can successfully treat food allergies, anxiety, bed wetting, all kinds of digestive problems, rashes, colds, and influenza , “to name a few.”

This is all outrageous fraud, and some of the claims could be deadly. Yet she and others in her trade routinely make such claims without opposition from regulators. So people naturally think the claims must be true. There are dozens of clinics like this operating in Hawaii. Acupuncturists are effectively exempt from anti-fraud laws, food-and-drug laws, medical device laws, and reckless endangerment laws; as are naturopaths and chiropractors. In fact, all these pseudo-professions have their ludicrous, quasi-religious dogmas written into the laws of Hawaii and some other states.

Kozak is okay with all this. She repeated the shibboleth popular with acupuncturists and other quacks, that the NIH is studying it, so it must be valid. In reality the NIH had the Office of Alternative Medicine shoved down its throat by legislators corrupted by lobbyists for fraudulent medicine, and it was required to spend the money allotted. Even so, studying a treatment is not the same as proving it works, something Kozak does not seem to understand.

Many years of expensive tax-funded studies suggest that acupuncture has marginal benefit in some kinds of nausea, and not much else. Almost any kind of counter-irritation or placebo could yield comparable results. What ever happened to the miracles of healing, the major pain relief, the drug-addiction cures, and the surgical anesthesia promised by acupuncturists and their boosters in the wake of Nixon’s trip to China almost 45 years ago? This is where it all started when Maoists hoaxed the American entourage with fake acupuncture anesthesia demonstrations and the Yankees fell for it.

In fact, the millions spent by the OAM on studying the various modes of alternative medicine so far appear to have been completely wasted, as the studies have yielded nothing to justify the cost and risks of the treatments or the cost of maintaining the office. Unfortunately, no amount of negative evidence is likely to change the minds and behavior of the true believers, the promoters, the unethical media, the practitioners themselves, or the politicians lobbied and corrupted by the latter.

There is not a scrap of evidence to support the wild claims made by acupuncturists about an alternative anatomy and physiology, discovered thousands of years ago, that can be used to prevent and treat every disease under the sun. The claims are delusional and fraudulent, yet the law allows them to be made in promotional materials and advertisements. Failure to point this out is another Kozak lie by omission. She is a resolute propagandist and is determined not to tell HPR listeners the truth about acupuncture and other forms of fraudulent alternative medicine.

Since Kozak believes that acupuncture dogma is true simply because it is ancient and Chinese, she presumably also believes in the efficacy of animal-part medicine that is decimating wildlife all over the globe, and she supports the slaughter of endangered animals (rhinos, tigers, bears, etc) for their horns, penises, gall bladders and other parts. 

Protest rather than pledge until Hawaii Public Radio stops promoting health fraud and generally abides by the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics and the similar code for electronic media. They must strive to tell the whole truth, and to foster discussion and debate; not to propagandize and indoctrinate. Otherwise there is no reason for rational people, especially rational health professionals, to support the station. 

Links to all my blogs: www.KurtButlerBlogs.blogspot.com. 

For more detailed critiques of various forms of quackery, including naturopathy, see my book A Consumer’s Guide to “Alternative Medicine”. It was expertly edited by legendary quack buster Stephen Barrett, MD.  The critics say:

"Superb!" -- Dr. Victor Herbert in the New England Journal of Medicine.

"Excellent" -- National Council Against Health Fraud.

"Five Stars" -- Cooking Light.

"Thought provoking; a great book" -- American Journal of Health Promotion.  

When the book was published almost 30 years ago it was strongly praised by responsible health experts and the rare responsible media, but trashed by new-age critics and even vandalized in bookstores by new-age fanatics. It is as true and relevant as ever, and has been mostly vindicated by time. Yet my courageous and far-sighted publisher, the venerable Prometheus Books, is still sitting on lots of copies. Please help validate their integrity by buying a copy. Or two or more as gifts. Perhaps 10 for your local school library and health classes. See their website for assorted discounts. Make them an offer. (My royalties are insignificant; this little promo is for the benefit of one of the world's great publishers, Prometheus Books.) 

Maui's future foretold: Barbarians In Paradise -- Terror Comes to Maui. This is a prophetic flash novel about a future police state and those who rebel against it. Available in paperback and ebook at Amazon.com.