BEIJING, July 17 /Xinhua-PRNewswire/ --
(Logo: http://www.prnasia.com/sa/20061102095006-51.jpg )
-- Acupuncture has become a global therapeutic method for the past
decades. There are differences among Member States of up to 25% of
acupuncture point locations. In recent years, WHO's Western Pacific
Regional Office, in collaboration with selected Member States,
initiated efforts to standardize acupuncture points. WHO convened
11 meetings on this topic from 2003 to 2006. The first meeting held
in 2003 involved experts from China, Japan and the Republic of Korea.
As the work progressed, additional experts were invited to
participate in the standardization project, including experts from
Australia, Mongolia, Singapore, USA, UK, Viet Nam. This process
culminated in a meeting held in Tsukuba, Japan during which the
standard acupuncture points were unified. Of the 92 controversial
points, 86 were standardized and the experts agreed that further
scientific research on the 6 remaining controversial points be
conducted. The WHO standard acupuncture point locations in the
Western Pacific Region was published.
-- In relation to the launching of the publication in Seoul, Republic
of Korea, a newspaper article was published, erroneously mentioning
that WHO chose Korean acupuncture to standardize acupuncture point
locations.
-- In view of the above, we would like to stress that WHO does not
favour any one set of standard acupuncture points from the different
countries. The whole purpose of these meetings is to come up with a
unified set of standard acupuncture points and we hope that the
above incident does not in any way detract from this goal.