Source: LOHAS Weekly Newsletter
Published: Friday, December 12, 2003

Herb doesn't lessen severity or length of existing symptoms, however.

In a study designed to test the effectiveness of the herb echinacea on children with respiratory tract infections, researchers found that children who ingested the herb were less likely that those in a placebo group to also get upper respiratory tract infections. However, the study found that the herb did not help lessen or shorten the symptoms of children already suffering from respiratory infections.

Nonetheless, 52.3 percent of children who took an echinacea syrup during a four-month period experienced second and third upper respiratory tract infections while 64.4 percent of those who took a placebo developed such maladies. Though most of the subjects tolerated the herb well overall, 7.1 percent who took echinacea got skin rashes; 2.7 percent of the placebo group reported getting rashes.

The University of Washington and Bastyr University conducted the study on 524 children between the ages of 2 and 11, according to a Dec. 1 announcement by the Austin, Texas-based American Botanical Council.