The Oriental medicine profession batted .500 last year with the California legislative process. While a partial herb sales tax exemption was vetoed by Governor Davis due to a huge budge shortfall, he did sign into law Senate Bill 341 (introduced by Don Perata), which helps to clarify our scope of practice in regards to our prescription of herbs and use of heat, cold and lasers. It also expands the purpose of prescription from simply to "promote health" to "promote, maintain, and restore health," which is more commonly accepted and useful terminology.
This year, the bases are loaded once again for the Oriental medicine profession, as we're taking on the following critical issues:
CSOMA has also embarked on a collaborative research effort with UCLA to benchmark the tasks, duties, skills and professional responsibilities of licensed acupuncturists in the state. We anticipate seeing this study expanded nationwide and view it as a critical component of building the bridge between the medicines of the East and West.
We're also in the midst of planning the CSOMA Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine Convention and Expo, which will be held August 9-12 at the San Francisco Airport Westin Hotel. The theme is "Oriental Medicine in a Changing World." Mark your calendars, as we promise to deliver an exceptional program.
To keep abreast of the changes happening in California, call (800) 477-4564, and be sure to visit www.csomaonline.org and www.acucouncil.org.
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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