Kat at 'She's Actual Size' reports that her acceptance of echinacea is skeptically tenative:"I'm bombarding it with the usual voodoo: Echinacea, zinc, and vitamin C. I don't actually believe any of that stuff really helps, but it can't hurt."
A recent study in Annals of Internal Medicine finds that echinacea is no more effective than a placebo (Barrett, et. al., Univ. of Wisconsin):
The author said in an NPR interview that echinacea may be effective as an immune booster so would not have shown up in the study done on University of Wisconsin students who are presumably at the peak of their health.
I asked local herbalist Evo Terra what his experience has been with the application of this popular herbal remedy.
