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Echinacea - Readers Comments

Echinacea • Hyping Echinacea with Bad Numbers • Tests of Echinacea Find No Benefit • Readers Comment • Herbal Products Linked to Cocaine Use in Teens

Consumers cling to their belief that "natural" supplements have value even in the face of tests that indicate otherwise.

Dan of Sarasota (5/17/04):
The article disavowing the effacacy of echinacea does not mention any dosage, or regemin.

I started using the stuff about a year ago to ward off respiratory infections, and find it helps tremendously. However, one must take massive doses of it daily for about 4 days. I usually take 1600 Mg., 3 times a day.

I have experienced complete reversal of symptoms within 18 hours using this plan. Normally I would have been quite ill for 3 days, and suffering some discomforting symptoms for weeks afterward.

Even though my father was an MD, I find some of the statements eminating from the AMA to be more than a little self-serving.

The test was conducted by a unit of the National Institutes of Health. The results were published in the AMA Journal.

Scott of Mission Viejo, CA (5/17/04):
The FDA has been trying for years now to place restrictions on the sales and manufacturing of herbal medications in an effort to assist the drug companies in regaining they’re (sic) losses. The rise of both homeopathic products and related documentation that attempts to bring us (the people) back to an understanding of how humans have spent thousands of years testing and trailing herbs and related supplements as a source of health improvement and solutions is a tremendous threat to the billions of dollars in advertising that has been spent over the last 100 years to convince us all that we can’t live without science and that it is our only hope for our survival.

As far as the German company Madaus Aktiengesellschaft, which markets Echinacea products is concerned, I'd like to know (since it only markets Echinacea) what other pharmaceutical products it manufactures. I would find it strange for any corporation today to directly sabotage a market product that distributes unless it stood to gain in a more profitable area of manufacturing. This type of stated information in an article should send up warning flags to any intelligent consumer. This is a classic form of public and market manipulation. I’m surprised you didn’t make that connection. Who wrote this article and who does the author really work for? I wonder.

Some supplement manufacturers have agreed to conduct scientific tests similar to those used to test other pharmaceutical products and medical devices. Their hope is that the supplements will prove useful. In this case, the German company lost; it paid for the test and got a negative result.

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