To the editor:

I felt you provided a great service to your readers when you interviewed Dr. Ron Weiner (Journal-World, March 19) about seasonal allergies, the way they are diagnosed and treatment advice ranging from evidence-based medical care to common sense ways to manage one’s environment. However, in the same section, you ran an article entitled “Acupuncture may help relieve allergies, study indicates.” Time and space doesn’t permit me to explain the plethora of errors, falsehoods and fallacies contained within the article, but suffice it to say that it was poor science journalism reporting on a flawed study. For example, compare the headline, which implies acupuncture is an effective therapy, with the paragraph in column two, which concludes: “The improvements may not have been large enough to be noticeable or to make much of a difference to people…”

Poorly researched and written science articles such as this one confuse the public and may cause harm by encouraging people to seek inappropriate treatment for potentially serious medical issues. The only needles that are of any benefit in the treatment of seasonal allergies are the skin tests and allergy shots that are often recommended by qualified medical personnel such as Dr. Weiner.