I can see your point, but you have to admit that health insurance companies paying for acupuncture says a great deal about whether or not it works in practice.

An excellent book on this subject is called Spark in the Machine, written by a western practitioner who also does acupuncture. After successfully treating ER patients with needles he was asked by his superiors to stop because they were afraid he'd undermine confidence in the western treatments.

I have been treated with needles, both successfully and not. I was impressed how well it worked, so I started borrowing books from my practitioner to find out why it worked. Most of them were a joke, but Spark in the Machine discusses the piezoelectric properties of the collagen component of the organic fascia tissue. It's a breakthrough idea that deserves more attention. It even explains why our facial bones (and others) develop the way they do, and it explains why motion therapy can be so beneficial.

The book also mentions how Mao decided to lump acupuncture in with TCM where it had been a separate discipline in the past. TCM is an institution now and you're right - it shouldn't be blindly trusted because it's managed for profit.

Nor should it be coarsely dismissed. All the really effective drugs we have are analogs of naturally occurring treatments. Aspririn, SSRIs and opiates wouldn't exist without Willow trees, St. John's Wart and poppy flowers.

Spark in the Machine follows the course of a single human ovum cell dividing into two, then four cells before eventually producing cells that distinguish themselves (bone cells vs skin cells vs muscle cells) from each other in order to shed light on the unseen aspects of our biology as an introduction to Qi.

The piezoelectric quality of collagen, which is a major component of the organic fascia tissue is likely affected by the needles in a way that stimulates healthy cell functions, and that's the best explanation I've seen for why acupuncture works. If research scientists can't corroborate this effect - its because they don't really want to