Zhentong Han: Tosser Spammer

EoR is receiving comment spam from Dr Zhentong Han in the following form (all links removed so as not to further Dr Han's plan to destroy Google by replacing it with links only to his commercial activities):

Hi.very good site.so what do your think about the following things:

Seven " facts "about acupuncture .

Myth: Acupuncture is widely used in China

Truth: Acupuncture is not widely used in China

Acupuncture is not widely used in China as a part of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) - TCM also being a phrase that originated in the 20th century (1954). Acupuncture declined in popularity once scientific medicine was introduced to China." In 1995 the Committee for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) went to China and found that around 15-20% of the population used TCM (not just acupuncture), and that those people used TCM in conjunction with scientific medicine: what we would term complementary medicine. This level of use is at the lower end of the scale compared to other countries with advanced healthcare systems and it falls well short of countries such as Germany, Canada, France and Australia where the use of alternative remedies is more than twice that of China. China's use of alternative remedies is actually lower than the UK population's - currently around 25%.

Myth:Acupuncture can stimulate the body's own healing response and help restore its natural balance by "Qi"

Truth: There is no evidence for the existence of this universal energy("Qi")

There are no scientific instruments that can detect it. It seemingly can only be detected and adjusted by practitioners. It is not a falsifiable hypothesis (it can't be tested) and as such is meaningless.

Myth: Acupuncture is an ancient Chinese cure that has existed, unchanging, for centuries.

Truth: acupuncture was formalized in a complex way over the past 100 years, mostly in Europe and France and after the Communist takeover in China. Before that time there was no consistent formalization of acupuncture points or what each place was supposed to do. It was largely regional, and the thinking varied from city to city."

Myth:Acupuncture offers specific cures

Truth: Acupuncture doesn't offer specific cure .

If it has the effect of, say, releasing endorphins through the application of needles, well, many things release endorphins -- a walk in the woods, a 5-mile run, a pinch on the butt."

Myth: Acupuncture can claim to have an effect many condition.

Truth: Acupuncture can only claim have an effect very few condition.

If there is one area that acupuncture can claim to have an effect it's in pain relief. Although most evidence supporting acupuncture can be dismissed as anecdotal, trials have been done where acupuncture does show a pain relieving effect above placebo. The effect is not large, of the same magnitude as taking Aspirin or Ibuprofen, but nonetheless it's there and cannot be ignored.That's not to say that there are not problems with such claims however. Pain is an entirely subjective experience; it cannot be directly measured and the severity felt depends to a large extent on the patient's state of mind; which can be influenced by the practitioner giving the treatment. This leads on to the problem of blinding procedures with acupuncture. The practitioner is always aware of whether he's giving real or sham acupuncture and which patients he's giving them to.The pain relief effect does seem to exist; however, it's not clear whether it's a real effect of acupuncture or a strong placebo effect that's induced in the patient by the elaborate procedure of an acupuncture treatment

Myth: Acupuncture is very safe:

Truth: Acupuncture is not inherently dangerous but being an invasive technique, it is not risk free.

Haematoma may result from the accidental puncture of a circulatory structure. Nerve injury can result from the accidental puncture of any nerve. Brain damage or stroke is possible with very deep needling at the base of skull. Also rare, but possible, is pneumothorax from deep needling into the lung, and kidney damage from deep needling in the lower back. Needles that are not properly sterilized can transfer diseases such as HIV and hepatitis. There is also the danger, common to all alternative therapies, of not seeking proper medical treatment because of an over reliance on alternatives. Acupuncturists are not doctors and will not have the capability of diagnosing a serious illness from its typical symptoms.

Myth: Acupuncture is more effective.

Truth: Acupuncture is not very effective.

The practise is based on untenable principles and the small amount of evidence there is to support its use in pain relief can also be called into question. Although there are claims that it has a mild pain relieving effect, it probably does so simply because it's an elaborate placebo. Whether the mild pain relieving properties are of acupuncture are real or not, most claims for the efficacy of acupuncture are grossly over-exaggerated. If there is a use for Acupuncture, it can only be in mild pain relief. The question then becomes a matter of whether the cost of acupuncture for this mild pain relief can be justified

(Content from internet)

Bristol Chinese Pain relief Acupuncture

It was nice of Dr Han to admit he plagiarised his cut'n'paste essay from the internet even though he failed to credit its author (Wallace Sampson, editor in chief of the Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine).

Dr Han's website is a mess of bad english:

For a limited time, Dr Zhentong Han, the more powerful name in local alternative medicine circle, is offering an absolutely no-obligation FREE Initial Consultation (excluding treatment and advanced holistic exam). This is where you get to spent some time with Dr Han ,(former medical doctor and acupuncturist of 20 years), to discuss about the health concerns or to get a second expert opinion.

More altie lying: the consultation's FREE [sic] as long as you pay for only the treatment and exam (and how can a "holistic exam", by definition, be either advanced or basic? it's either "holistic" or it's not).

So take advantage of this limited time offer and come experience the natural benefits and results of time-tested of 3000 years of natural medical therapy from us. [...] I am dedicated to staying current with the latest advances in the profession.

Right: a "time-tested" (not the same as scientifically tested, incidentally) therapy that still has advances.

He appears to have started his own blog. Like all spammers, he seems to also have a fascination for sex (the blog is titled English Teacher in Shanghai but the URI is sexandshanghai.blogspot.com. Would you trust a man willing to use sex (at least in name) to promote himself to also lay his hands on you?

Elsewhere he spams comments presenting himself as the lonely unassuming misunderstood healer of lost souls (also at Dr RW and probably hundreds of other sites as well):

Dr Han claimed that he regretted deeply for the matter, but he didn’t want to get involved in this legal dispute, for the purpose of having a website is not to score high on the network, but to have more patients understand the most veracious Chinese traditional acupunctural techniques through his website, so to help more patients get rid of the pain.

Actually, google Dr Zhentong Han and see all the link sites and referral engines this man has posted his website to. EoR is amazed and wonders how this magical man gets any time to even see a single patient in between his spamming activities. Pretending that there's no correlation between search engine ranking and patient enquiries (and, hence, income) is either disingenuous, or indicative of an amazingly high level of idiocy.

He also appears to be quite happy posting anywhere he can, apparently encouraging people to bring their horses into his clinic to lie down on his couch and get a bit of needling, and quite happily and extremely accurately describing himself as a tosser spammer. Oh, the ignorance of the truly stupid and desperate...

EoR normally just deletes this sort of rubbish (and has done so in this case as well), but this man's stupidity and dullheaded doggedness deserves its own post. EoR cannot understand spammers (what sort of idiot markets his company by pissing people off, and by using a method favoured of illegal scams?), but a retarded spammer? Promoting his "service" by giving all the arguments why acupuncture is a load of bollocks? What does EoR think about this? EoR thinks Dr Han shows himself to be a prick in more than one sense of the word.

Dr Han failed to steal (sorry, provide an "unattributed quote") the following statement from Professor Sampson:

"I look at it this way: what if acupuncture didn't exist?" he says. "Would medicine or society be any worse off? If no one knew about it, nothing would change."

What if Dr Han didn't exist? Well, there'd be one less weasly unethical lying spammer (and tosser) and the world would be a happier place.

Thank you for asking, Dr Han.