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Clarifying controls

It would be helpful if the article said which bogus points were used: i.e. where were they on the body with respect to the affected area, other acupuncture points, or other acupuncture meridians. For example, if the knee pain study used non-acupoints at or very near the knee, that would mean that the control could have been active according to TCM theory. (TCM suggests needling points close to a painful area even if those points are not traditional acupounts, especially if those same points are painful or ashi points.)

Needling shallowly at a verum point is also active.

Overall, it would be good to note that both controls, though less active than the treatment, are still potentially or actually active according to TCM theory. Ideally, we could use a source saying this in context of GERAC, to avoid coming even close to WP:SYN. But it could still be mentioned in a brief background section without violating SYN as long as we avoided putting a big "however" qualifier in the conclusion.

Some editors may say that the above sounds like special pleading, but the reasoning comes straight from the IOM . They say that the study of traditional medicines must take into account the traditional context of its practice: i.e., how treatments are formulated (which goes to theory) and delivered. The fact that the IOM makes this point establishes it as a well-weighted, mainstream scientific approach to acupuncture. This is obvious on the merits: It's very hard to see how anyone would argue that the possible use of active control group should be ignored unless that person were scientifically illiterate or disingenuous. --Middle 8 (talk) 22:53, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately the source doesn't elaborate on the bogus points, and as far as I understand they could have been ashi points (not very likely, though, given the fact that no de-qi was reached). However, if you want to include this allegation in the article, we would have to find a source for it - otherwise it would be Original Research. Cheers, --Mallexikon (talk) 04:30, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Primary sources tag

I found a good secondary source and just added it to the references... Don't have time to go through it right now and it's all in German, but this source should be able to cover most citations in this article. Will come back to it. --Mallexikon (talk) 03:02, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't see good secondary sources. This article relies heavily on primary sources. All content that relies on primary sources must be deleted now. QuackGuru (talk) 02:11, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

This is a secondary source? QuackGuru (talk) 02:44, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

The secondary source is from the Gemeinsamer Bundesausschuss. Please read WP:MEDREV: "When using a primary source, Misplaced Pages should not overstate the importance of the result or the conclusions." It does NOT say that primary sources can not be used at all, or have generally considered to be not reliable. Your unreliable source tagging, and questioning the primary source regarding how many health insurances actually initiated GERAC, appears pretty pointy here. --Mallexikon (talk) 03:03, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

The secondary source is from the Gemeinsamer Bundesausschuss? Don't you mean it is a primary source. You did not show how this is a secondary source. QuackGuru (talk) 03:48, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

The Federal Joint Committee (Germany), and other the primary sources are unreliable. The source Gemeinsamer Bundesausschuss is not reliable. QuackGuru (talk) 03:52, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

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