Response to Hudnut re: “Laser Acupuncture: A Concise Review” (DOI: 10.1089/acu.2019.1393)

First and foremost, I would like to thank the authors for their letter to the editor and for the article “Laser acupuncture: A concise review.”^1,2 I was invited by the editorial team of Medical Acupuncture to review the letter from Dr. Hudnut. When I read the text, I noticed that my name appears several times in it. I therefore felt that it would present a conflict of interest to review the letter myself, and that is why I refused. Nevertheless, I am grateful to have the opportunity to send in my own response to the letter, since the topic is very important and goes beyond personal aspects. I should also mention that I have only seen the first “unreviewed” version of Dr. Hudnut's letter.

Since Austria is a very small country that many people associate with skiing or culture, for example the music of Mozart, it is not surprising that researchers conducting a concise review of acupuncture² do not immediately perceive that researchers in Austria have been undertaking research in the field of Traditional Chinese Medicine for many years and have been specializing in the field of high-tech acupuncture at the Medical University of Graz. This includes laser acupuncture research.³ It is true that we have written many scientific articles (more than 90 listed on SCI and/or PubMed) to date just on the topic of laser acupuncture. That is more than researchers from the United States and Germany put together.⁴ Detailed information can be found on PubMed, which is known to all researchers. Most of our work is also open access and freely available to the public.

What is much more important, however, is the fact that laser acupuncture is now established as a new research field and thus as an innovative method of acupuncture, contributing enormously to the well-being of our patients. The names of the countries and people doing the research work can be listed in databases for statistical reasons, but they are certainly of secondary importance. However, nevertheless, I thank Dr. Hudnut for his comments concerning my small team in Austria. It is motivation for us to conduct further research on this interesting topic.

Thanks again to both lead authors, Dr. Chon and Dr. Hudnut—neither of whom I have yet gotten to know in person—for putting laser acupuncture in the spotlight of the medical acupuncture community.