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Biotech / Medical : GUMM - Eliminate the Common Cold
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To: out_of_the_loop who wrote (189)2/4/1999 10:57:00 AM
From: DanZ  Read Replies (2) of 5582
 
I spoke to a friend of mine today who is a Pharmacist. I asked him if he would look at the literature on Zicam and some of the research that has been done on colds and ICAM-1 receptors and give me an opinion on the product. He agreed to do this and get back to me in a couple of days. His initial reaction was that zinc has been shown to be effective against the common cold (Coldeeze e.g.) and that Zicam is a new delivery method that delivers zinc to the point of infection. He surmised that this would be more effective than a product that does not deliver zinc to the site of infection. He also talked about zinc molecules being larger than rhinovirus molecules and said that this could be the reason why it blocked the virus from entering the body.

I also told him that some people are skeptical of Zicam because the company has not yet published clinical studies that demonstrate its effectiveness. He told me that zinc has already been shown to be effective against the common cold, and since Zicam is another delivery method for zinc, he did not believe clinical trials were necessary, nor did he think that they would be conducted by a company the size of Gum Tech. He said it is common practice to not perform clinical studies on OTC products where the active ingredients have already been shown effective in other products.

For example, a company that develops and markets a product containing commonly used fever reducers, antihistamines, decongestants, and expectorants would not be expected to conduct clinical trials before releasing their product because the active ingredients have already been demonstrated in other products. If this is true, then why should one expect GumTech to conduct clinical trials for Zicam when this is not standard industry practice. Can anybody verify that this is standard industry practice?

Thanks,
Dan
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