"IS ECHINACEA SAFE AND EFFECTIVE?"

"I was surprised to see that you recommend Echinacea for children. Everything else that I read says that Echinacea is not proven to be safe nor is it proven to work. Please send me some links to peer reviewed medical studies showing that Echinacea is safe because I would love to use it. I have used it in the past, but have not while pregnant and breastfeeding."

Something you should know about herbal remedies: they're not regulated by the FDA, so there is no need for the supplement to be studied in-depth in peer reviewed journals. Most of the "evidence" comes from decades or centuries of use. When something gets used for this long, people tend to figure out what works and what doesn't, what's safe, and what isn't. Regarding echinacea, in a quick search of "pediatric news" (one of the more popular pediatric newsletters) I found a review article that looked at 9 studies on echinacea. All of them found it to be safe, and 8 of them found it to be effective. In over 100 years of use, there have been no reported negative effects. One of the better articles regarding echinacea can be found in the journal Contemporary Pediatrics, December 1996.

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