Blind Acupuncturist Takes 2nd Stab At License

ClickonDetroit ^ | February 1, 2008 | AP

[ShadowDancer]

Blind Acupuncturist Takes 2nd Stab At License

First Application Rejected Last Year Over Blindness

POSTED: 1:15 pm EST February 1, 2008
UPDATED: 2:02 pm EST February 1, 2008

AUSTIN, Texas -- A blind student of acupuncture is making a second request for a license to practice in Texas.

That's after Juliana Cumbo's first application was rejected last year because of her blindness.

The licensure committee of the Texas State Board of Acupuncture Examiners is set to rehear her request Friday.

If she's licensed, she would be the first blind person to be issued a state license.

The 31-year-old practices as a graduate intern in the student clinic of the Academy of Oriental Medicine at Austin.

She has earned a master's degree in acupuncture and Oriental medicine and passed the national board exams.

Meng-sheng Lin is the licensure committee chairwoman, and the Dallas acupuncturist said she's inclined to repeat her vote against Cumbo's application.

She said she's trying to fulfill her duty to protect the public.

Lin said acupuncture can lead to bleeding that if unnoticed could pose a contamination risk.

Cumbo's attorney, David Cohen of Austin, said denying Cumbo a license solely because of her blindness would violate the Americans with Disabilities Act.

[ElkGroveDan]

That’s right up there with a blind lumberjack.

[Alright_on_the_LeftCoast]

perhaps the most appropriate headline ever...lol

[exit82]

I can’t see the point to this.

Evidently, neither can he.

[Rick.Donaldson]

I’m wondering is she drives to work....

[N. Theknow]

A blind student of acupuncture is making a second request for a license to practice in Texas.

Probably be on pins and needles until a decision is made.

[Rick.Donaldson]

You guys.... you know it’s not nice to poke fun...

[Eric in the Ozarks]

She should move over into Chiropractic. No needles, no bleeding...

[wolfcreek]

I heard this morning, in Japan, 30% of acupuncturists are blind. (they can also hear and smell bleeding)

[traumer]

Or a driver instructor...

[ShadowDancer]

It’s okay, her GPS is in braile.

[bamahead]

Meng-sheng Lin is the licensure committee chairwoman, and the Dallas acupuncturist said she's inclined to repeat her vote against Cumbo's application.

She sure sounds like a prick...

[CholeraJoe]

I had a massage from a blind massage therapist. Couldn’t tell any difference.

[CholeraJoe]

they can also hear and smell bleeding

It takes cutting a major artery to be able to hear bleeding. I used to be able to smell bleeding, but the ability has faded with time.

[Squantos]

That lawyer needs to be beat for a week with a wiffle bat !

[Cicero]

If she earned her degree and passed her board exams, I’m inclined to think she may be qualified. I imagine she can feel the correct spots with her hands, and nobody would be required to see her who didn’t choose to do so.

Blind people can do some amazing things, as they develop their other senses. I have a friend who’s blind. He frequently goes out for walks, never uses a cane, and has had no problems I know of. He once managed to ride a bicycle more than twenty miles around a loop of country roads. Not sure how, but he has excellent hearing, so he would hear cars coming. I think his wife went with him and helped direct him.

[3AngelaD]

Why are they sticking it to this poor woman?

[ShadowDancer]

What are you, a beagle?

[ShadowDancer]

Meanwhile, I have near perfect vision and daily walk smack into something that has never moved in my house once in 12 years.

[live+let_live]

Normally a person doesn’t get a second chance, but this lady kept needling the board until they relented.

[Kirkwood]

Don’t confuse functional blindness with total blindness. A person can be functionally blind because of the loss of central vision such as with macular degeneration, but still have enough peripheral vision to be able to get around objects and see when people pass by. Conversely, a person may have no peripheral vision and just a spare amount of central vision as in glaucoma. Using some low vision aids, they might be able to read letters or see faces, but cannot function normally. Still others who are blind might see everything in a blur, but see nothing clearly due to irreversible damage to their lens or cornea. I am curious to know what kind of blindness she has.

[Gantz]

I don't know where you'd find this now, but in ancient Japan acupuncture was one of the professions practiced by the blind. They would scent the needles with Lavender in order to be able to locate them by smell (as well as touch, I'd imagine).

I had a friend who was blind from birth, and both his hearing and sense of smell were amazing. With training and practice, I would say a blind person could indeed practice acupuncture.

[DeLaine]

A blind man drives up to a house, gets out of the car, goes up to the door and rings the doorbell. A man comes to the door, gives the blind man a check and the blind man gives him a package. Then the blind man gets back into his car and drives away.

What was in the package???

[susannah59]

Window blinds!

[allmendream]

In Scientific double blind studies Traditional Acupuncture was no more efficacious than ‘Sham’ Acupuncture.

People reportedly are satisfied with the Acupuncture, but it really doesn’t matter where you poke them; so long as a ‘professional’ put them on a table, did something, and told them their problem should be alleviated/cured.

Acupuncture is a Sham! But the customers reportedly are satisfied being scammed.

[allmendream]

That being said, why should the blind be left out of this lucrative racket?

[ShadowDancer]

If the customers are satisfied then where is the harm? Say they went to try to quit smoking. Even if there is no true science to it working for that but the person believes it and quits, then isn’t it worth it?

[allmendream]

Sure. Like I said, it is all about customer satisfaction, and Acupuncture does work in that if you go for acupuncture because of listlessness/stop smoking/ head aches/ etc; when they ask you if you think it helped the person is bound to say yes.

Of course the hardest thing about prosecuting Con men is getting the conned to admit to themselves that they were cheated (they still think that check is coming from Nigeria!).

But the harm is that the person should probably pursue medical treatment first, and only if the Dr. is unable to help should they go the psychosomatic route.

I just want everyone to know that Traditional Acupuncture doesn’t work any better than poking them any damn place you want.

That being said, the blind acupuncturist can do just as good a job as anyone else. Who cares if they ‘miss’ the ‘spot’. There is no spot to miss. It only works on the BRAIN of the patient/customer not some silly connection between a spot on the hand and ‘liver function’ or some other made up Bovine excrement.

[ex-snook]

So what’s the point?

[ShadowDancer]

But the harm is that the person should probably pursue medical treatment first

I don't know. I've never done acupuncture but I did get a script once for a med to help me stop smoking and frankly, I would rather have been poked with needles. It was an antidepressant apparently and I was completely out of it and worthless. Medical treatment is not always what it's cracked up to be.

[toddlintown]

Why are there braille signs at drive-up ATMs?

[ShadowDancer]

I asked my kids that about a month ago when we were at an ATM. You should have seen their faces, they both looked around in a panic like we were about to be plowed into by Mr. Magoo.

[DeLaine]

You win!

[LSAggie]

I just want everyone to know that Traditional Acupuncture doesn’t work any better than poking them any damn place you want.

And you know this, how? I'm taking my dog in for acupuncture treatments. There is no way I would just start sticking needles in her, but, guess what, my DVM does, and my dog is moving a lot better than she did before we started the treatments.

[Moonman62]

She should become an umpire.

[allmendream]

Because of several Scientific studies on if Acupuncture if a efficacious treatment. What do you base the effectiveness of a treatment upon, anecdote, wishful thinking, ancient Chinese secret? I am a Scientist, so I rely upon Scientific study.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/05/050504101520.htm

Acupuncture Treatment No More Effective Than Sham Treatment In Reducing Migraine Headaches

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/26979.php

Acupuncture No Better for Fibromyalgia than Sham Acupuncture

http://cre.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/21/8/719

Effects of acupuncture and sham acupuncture in addition to physiotherapy in patients undergoing bilateral total knee arthroplasty — a randomized controlled trial

[tioga]

Rectal bleeds? I should be so lucky.

[allmendream]

Uh yeah, Western Medicine is based upon molecular interaction (reality)and double blind studies (confirming the predicted effect), and has been amazingly effective in raising life expectancy, treating formerly incurable diseases, and everything else.

Hate to break it to you but Homeopathy doesn’t work either.

[ShadowDancer]

I see. So you contend that taking mood altering drugs that effect your brain chemicals are always better because, well, they’re ‘modern’ medicine’?

[LSAggie]

Are these like the studies that told us to use maragine instead of butter and stop drinking coffee?

Sure, I could have just put my dog on pain pills and it probably would have been a lot cheaper, but I wanted the problem solved, not just medicated.

[allmendream]

One does not logically follow from the other.

Most disease has a molecular cause and therefore a molecular solution.

You can take any mood altering drugs you want, but you’d have to smoke a lot of em to think that “New Age”/Traditional medicine is better than medicine based upon Science and double blind studies. The data just doesn’t support such a contention.

[allmendream]

And poking your doggie with a needle does what exactly to solve the problem?

What principle does it work upon? Wishful thinking?

[ShadowDancer]

but you’d have to smoke a lot of em to think that “New Age”/Traditional medicine is better than medicine based upon Science and double blind studies.

Are you claiming this to be the case across the board or just in a majority of cases?

[allmendream]

I wouldn’t make a ironclad across the board statement that all modern medicine is efficacious and all Traditional/New Age medicine is bunk; but the inescapable conclusion of any reasonable person who looked at the justification/ theory behind the treatment and the effect of such treatment would conclude that one has sound reasoning based upon molecular interaction and Scientific study of effectiveness's; while the other has a lot of mumbo jumbo and wishful thinking.

Ancient people were not stupid, and so Traditional medicines are often found to have an actual molecular mechanism behind them. If I was sick in South America and some tribal root woman said “Chew on this” you had best believe I would be chewing it! But if you gave me my choice of that or Western Medicine I know which I would choose. But I’d take the root with me and see what compounds in the root could be used as a drug (it is what I do).

The Placebo effect is very strong. Putting someone in the hands of an ‘expert’ who is going to make them ‘better’ has an amazing psychosomatic effect on the patient. But not all things can be helped by putting the patient into a better frame of mind (that is what Scientologists believe); some things have a molecular cause that need a molecular solution. Because the placebo effect is so strong it is hard to separate out the treatments that are actually working and those which are just ‘helpful’.

New Age is just a bunch of hippie garbage feel good nonsense.

Crystal healing, acupuncture, auras, scent therapy, and homeopathy are nothing BUT the placebo effect.

[ShadowDancer]

Well, I wanted an argument but I agree with everything you said. Thanks for nothing.

[allmendream]

FUNNIEST POST I EVER READ!!!! KILLING ME!!!!

[CholeraJoe]

You’d have to be dead not to be able to smell rectal bleeding. I could also smell bleeding from other sources.