“In the ethical sense, medical professionals are caught between prescribing a treatment that they know is ineffective beyond a placebo effect, and helping their patients find relief from chronic pain. Although this is a contentious issue, it is clear that acupuncture is an effective treatment for chronic pain, but only if patients believe that it will work.”
It is not even remotely as simple as the article portrays, but gives insight into thinking by western medicine. Read the article on TheMuse.ca here: http://themuse.ca/2016/02/19/acupuncture-ethics-and-the-placebo-effect/