Can I hate something real quick? Thanks.
I hate this for a couple reasons:
Acupuncture institutions and practitioners have historically repped for the right wing because they think it's good for our medicine (it's not)
Yet another opportunistic bootlicking from the NCCAOM
Historic goddamned precedent
When the pandemic began, acupuncture institutions kept claiming that "this is our time to shine." Which in addition to being incredibly tone deaf and outright crass, was categorically untrue.
The theory on that was that the Shang Han Lun--the treatise on epidemic illnesses--has a framework for dealing with an epidemic that looks very much like this one. And to a degree (stay with me here for the "but"), it was true.
Believe it or not, we could predict the progression of the illness based on initial symptoms, and we had--like--a crazy amount of information coming out of China in 2019, even though the government tried its best to suppress it. I mean, the news showed people dying at bus stops and the government was like, "wow, so crazy random." Meanwhile, scientists were like "NOVEL VIRUS NOVEL VIRUS WATCH OUT".
I have some ex-pat mentors who are straight traumatized in frankly upsetting ways. Literal tin foil.
Anyway, those of us who pay attention (so like researchers and 3% of practitioners) knew what was in the pipeline, and by the time the virus got to the States, it wasn't hard to see that we're going to need a lot more than unprepared rehmannia. It might momentarily stave off death, but it's not foolproof, assured, or a public policy. We don't even have access to the fresh raw stuff, for Christ's sake!
"Now is the time to show the world what this medicine is made of! We're crucial in this pandemic."
LOL whoopsie, guys. Looks like you all just sort of spread it, because in addition to being shit herbalists, you also fail at basic cleanliness and wearing masks.
When I see the gleeful heralding of misery and despair for a few measly bucks, I'm already a little cross. Mix in gross incompetence and ignorance to the basic underpinnings of civilized existence, and I'm watching my field flush itself down the goddamned drain.
