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Doctor

Australia

"Echinacea doesn't work, study finds"

Source: The Age

Published: 29 Jul 2005

Category: Pharmaceutical

Rating: (4 stars)

what they said (Hover the mouse cursor over underlined words for more info)

Being sick with a cold is nothing to sneeze at, but new research finds that taking the popular herbal remedy echinacea does nothing to treat or prevent it.

The original article can be found at: http://www.theage.com.au/news/science/echinacea-doesnt-work-study-finds/2005/07/28/1122143939019.html#

how did it rate? (more information)

Criteria	Rating
Total Score	7 of 9
Novelty of Treatment	Satisfactory (?)
Availability of Treatment	Satisfactory (?)
Treatment Options	Not Satisfactory (?)
Disease Mongering	Satisfactory (?)
Evidence	Satisfactory (?)
Quantification of Benefits of Treatment	Satisfactory (?)
Harms of Treatment	Not Satisfactory (?)
Costs of Treatment	Not Applicable
Sources of Information	Satisfactory (?)
Relies on Press Release	Satisfactory (?)

what we said (Hover the mouse cursor over underlined words for more info)

This is an excellent story highlighting the negative results of a rigorous clinical trial of a popular complementary treatment for colds and flu. Strong features are the summary of the existing research, the description of the methods and results of the new trial and the disclosure of potential conflicts of interest amongst the informants who provided comments on the study results. It would have been helpful to have some information on the adverse effects of Echinacea (although these are somewhat academic if the remedy should not be used) and alternative treatments. But these are minor criticisms of a well written article.

public forum

(08 Jan 2010) M.Lewis from Southern Cross University writes,

"I am aware that this is an old article, but I do urge your reviewers to consider the importance of understanding the full variables associated with herbal medicines when assessing the articles. There was no mention in this article about dosage, nor what part of the plant was used (ie stem or flower or both), or even whether it was E.purpurea or E. angustifolia. This is a relatively new realm for health reporters, which carries with it a range of new pharmacognostic intricacies that journalists need to be aware of when reporting on herbal medicine research. This article would have lost more points for me, given its failure to report on the critical details about dosage, duration and the specifics of the product/s being tested on participants."

(11 Aug 2005) alan cassels from university of victoria writes,

"I would assume that given the relatively inexpensive nature of most echinacea preparations, the cost of treatment rates an 'n/a'? The article left me thinking, maybe the botanical guy is right, and they didn't actually test the echinacea in a high enough dose. We know that playing around with comparative doses is sometime done to make a comparator look bad, as happens in pharmaceutical research; Couldn't it happen here?"

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