Ugh. Five years ago, I selected a local physiotherapist clinic based on eliminating all of their competitors that mentioned woo on their web-site. It's been 4.5 years since I needed a physio, and I went back today; my old physio no longer works there, and I was assigned a new one. Everything was going great, until the end of the consultation when she explained she offered dry-needling.

Now, I have a dilemma. Shut up and take her advice? Walk away and start again? Just decline dry-needling? What other advice is she giving me that has a poor evidentiary basis?

@Oddthinking The available evidence on that technique isn't optimal but also not that bad. Depending on the issue and 'other methods available for that' it is just 'a bit shaky', not 'fully woo'. crd.york.ac.uk/CRDWeb/ShowRecord.asp?ID=32017000381 sbu.se/en/publications/responses-from-the-sbu-enquiry-service/… Seems even much better than the evidence for mandatory public masking. And since most of the planet no longer demands any hard evidence on such things …

Eg: Far too many surgeries done in that realm (knee, hip, spine) do not speak volumes in favour of the profession. State of the art treatment was/is often quite poor in comparison. And if I were to decline any business on grounds of 'also offers woo' I would not have any resident physician or pharmacy to go to anyway. Esp the pharmacies are hopeless in that regard. Demand is up, the money 'good'.

I mostly even gave up mentioning those deficiencies to practitioners or pharmacists. But we should not hide our demands on that.

@LаngLаngС I get the distinction between "We have evidence it doesn't work" and "We don't have evidence it works" and "We have evidence it works, but not very well", and I don't want medicos recommending any of them to me. (I don't think Caveat Emptor is appropriate in a medical setting, where people are sick and desperate, and the information gap is so huge.)

@LаngLаngС That's a key problem. I will vote against woo with my wallet, but the barrier to changing is high, and the search costs in an environment where most suppliers are offering it is also high. Hence my lament.