Talk:Echinacea

I added a few things from a Univ of Maryland Medical Center site that appear to contradict some of what Robert added. I'll leave it to him to reconcile the two.  :-) Stephen Ewen 23:09, 3 February 2008 (CST)

Alright, I took a stab at reconciling the two. Just a stab. Stephen Ewen 03:36, 4 February 2008 (CST)

1. Surprisingly, there are a number of studies to show that publication bias is especially a problem in alternative medicine. Even harder to believe is that it seems especially problematic in publications from Germany (these analyses were done by German authors). I added this to this article and to the publication bias article.

2. Are you sure you want to cite the University of Maryland website? Problems are that this is a non-systematic summary of evidence (see Antman, JAMA 1992. "A comparison of results of meta-analyses of randomized control trials and recommendations of clinical experts. Treatments for myocardial infarction". JAMA 268 (2): 240–8. http://pubmed.gov/1535110). In addition, this site has not undergone peer review, and does not link specific studies to specific claims. If you want to represent the pro-Echinacea camp, you should work with the meta-analysis I cited from Lancet Infectious Disease; I think its validity is much better than a the U of Maryland webpage. Maybe if you look closer at the meta-analysis you will see a better interpretation of it than the interpretation I offered. If you want to keep in the Maryland webpage, I think we need to note it is not systematic, does not link specific studies to specific claims, and has not been peer reviewed. This does not mean it is incorrect, but means it has a lesser chance of being correct and more of a chance of overstating effect size. - Robert Badgett 12:55, 6 February 2008 (CST)