German acupuncture trials

The German acupuncture trials (German: GERAC-Studien) were a series of nationwide acupuncture trials set up in 2001 and published in 2006 on behalf of several German statutory health insurance companies because of a dispute as to the usefulness of acupuncture. They consisted of one observational study on acupuncture side effects, and four randomized controlled trials (RCTs) investigating acupuncture treatment for low back pain, knee osteoarthritis, migraine prophylaxis, and tension-type headache. The trials are considered to be one of the largest clinical studies in the field of acupuncture.

As a result of the GERAC trials, the German Federal Joint Committee ruled in April 2006 that the costs of acupuncture treatment for chronic back pain and knee osteoarthritis would be covered by public health insurers in Germany, though no coverage was offered for headache or migraine. However, because of the outcome of these trials, in the case of the other conditions, insurance corporations in Germany were not convinced that acupuncture had adequate benefits over usual care or sham treatments. No significant differences between acupuncture and sham acupuncture were found in any trial. However, the trials also found that for chronic low back pain, the "effectiveness of acupuncture, either verum or sham, was almost twice that of conventional therapy."

According to Schweizer Fernsehen, the total cost of the trials amounted to 7.5 million Euros. Several years after the Committee's decision to incorporate acupunctural treatment into the healthcare of Germany was passed into law, the number of regular users of acupuncture in the country surpassed one million.

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