You may have read that echinacea failed to stop colds in children. Here is a statement from several herbalists about that study: "The echinacea in the UW study was ineffective because it was inferior. In his Baseline of Health newsletter last week, Jon Barron pointed out that within the community of herbalists it's well known that the most potent part of the echinacea plant is the root. Jon writes, "In fact, potency runs from seed to root to leaf to almost none in the flower." And you know exactly where I'm going with this: The echinacea used in the study was mostly extract from the flower of the plant. If you REALLY want to test echinacea, then for goodness sake, use the most potent part! The use of echinacea flower may also have a lot to do with the rash problem. Mark Blumenthal, the executive director of the American Botanical Council, told NutraIngredients.com that rashes are not normally associated with Echinacea. He believes that the rashes could very well have been an allergic reaction to pollen in the flowers. But when echinacea root is used - guess what? - no pollen! So again, if the researchers had used the proper echinacea type, there would probably have been no rash issue at all. But then this begs an obvious question about the placebo in this study: What kind of placebo causes a rash? Unless each child was informed that the "medication" might cause a rash (which seems highly unlikely), it's inconceivable that the resulting rashes in the placebo group could be due to a placebo effect. As I told you in the e-Alert "Aiming to Please" (7/21/03), the placebos used in each individual study are unique and often contain some active ingredients. So what in the world did they put in the placebo that caused rashes? The fact that this is not addressed isn't surprising. Studies never discuss the contents of placebos. " Douglass newsletter, 12/03 Remember we are NOT Doctors and have NO medical training. This site is like an Encylopedia - there are many pages, many links on many topics. Support our work with any size DONATION - see left side of any page - for how to donate. You can help raise awareness of CAM.