Proposed Legislation Requires Texas Children to Learn Battlefield Acupuncture.....

Austin, TX - As mass shootings continue at a record pace, Texas lawmakers are considering a new law that would require all school districts to train children as young as nine months in the management of acute pain in wounded classmates using battlefield acupuncture (BFA).

Manny, the lifelike mannequin used for training infants and toddlers in the non-pharmaceutical pain management of school mass shooting victims

"The idea of children crawling around with sharp needles in their hands during a mass shooting might sound a bit disturbing to moms and dads," Governor Greg Abbott explained. "But I want to be the first to reassure parents that battlefield acupuncture is extremely safe and almost none of them will have their eye put out...by an acupuncture needle."

The U.S. Department of Defense and Pediatric Medicine (DDPM), which developed battlefield acupuncture protocols for children in the 1960s in response to threats of a nuclear exchange with the USSR, reports that pain is often undertreated in children. According to retired Air Force colonel Mort Fishman, an expert in both acupuncture and child development, the cause of a pain isn't particularly important. "Whether you are dealing with a sore throat, a skinned knee, or an AR-15 round to the abdomen, the response should be the same because the children are our future and we should protect them...from poorly treated pain."

HB2147 would require that battlefield acupuncture training start once an infant develops a mature pincer grasp, which is typically around nine to ten months. The bill's author, Texas Representative Rosco Shrump, said the measure was inspired by the massacre at Robb Elementary in Uvalde. 

We can all agree that the answer is to arm all our administrators, teachers, custodians, cafeteria workers, and parents so that there will be an impenetrable perimeter of good guys with guns around every school, and that we also need volunteer armed escorts on school buses, during field trips, at after school sports practices, and at away games. But until then, oh, and also let's fix mental health because that's the real problem here. But we have to do something, and this is definitely something.

Some critics are concerned that battlefield acupuncture will be too emotionally intense for younger children. Dr. Fishman says that the training can easily be done in an age appropriate way without using any gory images. "It's not scary at all, and the kids actually have a great time practicing with our lifelike training mannequins while we simulate an assault on their childcare facility or school using volunteers from local prisons and police departments."