Physical Therapists in Virginia should follow current laws regarding dry needling and get their acupuncture license.  Please consider the New Jersey Attorney General’s opinion on dry needling from February 9, 2017.  In the opinion the Attorney General states the following:

• Accordingly you are advised that under the current statute, physical therapists are not authorized to engage in dry needling or intramuscular stimulation.
• Nor is it reasonable to conclude that the Board possesses the authority to so significantly expand the scope of practice to include dry needling through the regulatory process. The identification of tasks to be authorized through the promulgation of a rule under the definitional catch-all, identified above -- “such other treatments and functions as may be further defined by the board by regulation” -- must be informed by the nature of the activities that are recognized to be within the scope of practice.
• Significantly N.J.S.A. 45:2C-8 does not include physical therapists among the practitioners authorized to engage in acupuncture -– a practice that explicitly involves the insertion of needles. It would be anomalous to conclude that legislatively recognized practitioners (physicians and dentists) would be authorized to engage in the practice, but only if they have met specific training requirements, but physical therapists could embark on the same activity without such recognition or training. For the purpose of this opinion we need not address the differences in the philosophical underpinning for the respective practices of physical therapy and acupuncture. That the purposes for which needles are used in acupuncture have a theoretical basis in Oriental medicine, distinct from the purposes that advocates for the inclusion of “IMS/dry needling” in physical therapy practice would claim is not determinative. The activity itself -– the insertion of needles in points in the body -- as with most medical procedures, has risks and contraindications, for which training is required.

There are laws on the books in Virginia surround the practice of acupuncture.  All persons wishing to engage in acupuncture should be held to the same standard of law.