ST. JOHN'S WORT STUDY MISINTERPRETED SAYS HERBAL SCIENCE GROUP The American Botanical Council and some of its scientific advisors note that a new government-sponsored clinical study on the effectiveness of the popular herb, St. John's Wort, being released to the media is being misinterpreted. The study concludes that neither the herb nor the drug sertraline showed any measurable benefit in patients with more severe forms of depression. The fact that the sertraline was not effective in the primary measures of depression demonstrates (according to the NIH's own design protocol) that this study could not discern the effectiveness of a known effective treatment and therefore was not a successful study. Further, the authors of the study used a secondary outcome measure to conclude that sertraline was more effective than the placebo and therefore better than St. John's Wort, which is against standard rules of interpreting clinical studies. LINK to their website Lots of information on herbs Complement Thera in Med, 9/03 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.