California Board Adds Four New Members
On November 13, California governor Gray Davis announced the appointment of four new members to the California Acupuncture Board. The appointees are:
Gary Klapman, MD. A member of the American College of Emergency Physicians, Dr. Klapman graduated from the University of Illinois Medical School with a degree in emergency medicine. He also has a medical degree in acupuncture from the Traditional Acupuncture Institute in Columbia, Maryland.
Pei Li Zhong-Fong, LAc. Ms. Zhong-Fong is a licensed acupuncturist with a master's degree in Oriental medicine from Guanzhou College of Traditional Chinese Medicine. She has served as an acupuncture licensing examiner in California and is a member of the California Acupuncture Medical Association.
Howard Moffett, LAc, MPH. Mr. Moffett is one of the country's leading researchers in the area of acupuncture and stroke recovery. He is a former director of the AIDS and Chinese Medicine Institute and has been a faculty member at the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine (ACTCM) since 1992. In addition to being a licensed acupuncturist, he earned a master's degree in public health from the Harvard School of Public Health and a master's degree in traditional Chinese medicine from ACTCM.
Michael Eng, JD. Mr. Eng is the founder of an immigration and nationality law practice based in Los Angeles, California. He is also a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, and has authored several books on immigration and citizenship law for attorneys, agencies and volunteers.
Each new member will serve a three-year term on the board. The appointees are expected to be confirmed by the state Senate and will begin serving later this year.
ACAOM Expands Acupuncture Services in Texas
In an effort to make the healing benefits of acupuncture and Oriental medicine available to more people, the American College of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine has stuck an alliance with Memorial Hermann Healthcare System. ACAOM will now offer acupuncture services at the Memorial Hermann/Houston Baptist University Wellness Center, one of the largest medically-based, university-affiliated wellness centers in the state.
"We must continue to remain active and lead the community in the effort to mainstream Oriental medicine. I think that it is time to show the public what we have to offer," said Shen Ping Liang, ACAOM's president.
Memorial Hermann Healthcare System is the largest not-for-profit health system in Texas, with 13 hospitals and a medical staff of more than 3,300. ACAOM now provides Oriental medical services at three main locations in the Houston area and has an additional training program at Liaoning College of Traditional Chinese Medicine in China.
Chronic pain afflicts over 20% of the adult population. Sadly, most MDs have essentially no education in treating pain, beyond offering a few toxic medications. Then they tend to steer people with pain away from those health practitioners who are trained. This puts the acupuncture community on the front lines for addressing this epidemic.
When the body is going through a stressful event, the sympathetic system is activated. This activation will help the body with a life-threatening situation. If this state is activated for prolonged periods of time, it starts to consume energy. These traumatic events that generate stressors in the autonomic nervous system (ANS) will eventually become internalized.
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One of the things that makes acupuncture so difficult to measure is that the medicine actually does contain some esoteric aspects. There have been numerous studies that demonstrate the neurochemical reasoning behind why acupuncture points stimulate the autonomic nervous system to enact change However, not all the benefits of TCM can easily be measured by randomized, controlled trials. But does that make them fundamentally and definitively untrue?
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