Acupuncture HAS been proven effective in every single study ever conducted. The criticism that fanatic skeptics extremists have of it is that, while the difference between acupuncture and no treatment is very very large in every case, the difference between acupuncture and so-called "sham" acupuncture is small, sometimes even clinically insignificant.

But this phenomenon makes total sense when we take into account the fact that this "sham" acupuncture is not analogous to placebo at all, but in fact is strikingly similar to a very authentic traditional style of Japanese acupuncture (shallow needle insertion/non-penetration, alternate acupoint and meridian location, etc) that has been in common use for centuries are is still widely practiced to this very day.

The fact is, acupuncture is effective, and its silly to even try to test it against a placebo in the first place, because its not a pill or a drug or a substance that lends itself to such methodology. 

So what if some of acupuncture's effects originate in the mind? TCM theory itself states that, in therapy "the mind leads the qi, the qi leads the blood", indeed predicting itself the main criticism that fanatic skeptic extremists have against it.

Its time to realise that Chinese Medicine is a valuable body of knowledge and lore, and to end the racism and xenophobia that insists that only Western culture is capable of developing an effective system of medicine. Afterall, if Chinese Medicine in so ineffective, how come the population of China is so much bigger than in Europe, where Western Medicine developed?