Acupuncture, Infertility, and Horrible Reporting
An article (and associated news video clip) from ClickOn in Detroit is titled “Alternative treatment helps Michigan doctor beat infertility.” This is a misleading title, and the report is an example of poor science reporting.
Was She Infertile?
The patient in question was a 33-year-old family practice doctor who believed she was infertile. By definition, infertility is failure to conceive after a year of regular intercourse without contraception. She didn’t meet that definition. She only tried for 6 months before seeing a doctor, and then for 2 more months (with some kind of unspecified medicine) and then she consulted a reproductive endocrinologist who apparently told her she was infertile because of a high FSH level. Then she “did her own research” and supposedly found that acupuncture was a key part of infertility treatment. So she sought infertility treatment from an acupuncturist.