I never made any comments about Dr. Turner's study. Don't put words in my mouth Dan. I would say both studies are too small in scope. However, Dr Turner's study was statistically significant relative to the serotypes of rhinovirus he tested because they were undeniably the infectious agents in these cases. Happy? As for the geographic location of the Dr. Hirt study, I seem to recall that all of these subjects came from the LA area. The reference to 4 different sites probably refers to four different locations in LA. If you really wanted to answer that question, then why don't you just reference the paper. I can't believe you don't have a copy of it. If you don't, then please forward me the article reference and I'll be happy to retrieve a copy for you. It's nonsensical for you to insist that 213 patients is statistically significant given fact that millions of people get colds every year and these colds can be caused by over 100 different strains of virus. The variation in the potential number of causative agents alone demands a test population several orders of magnitude greater than what was tested. Simply standing there and ignorantly declaring the study "statistically significant" doesn't make it so.
"You are correct that I don't know what the most commonly occurring rhinoviruses are, and as I stated, I don't think anybody does. The data from Dr. Hirt's study, and several studies conducted before him, suggest that Zicam (or any zinc based product tested to date) is ineffective against RV 23 and RV 39 and effective against other strains of rhinovirus. I would agree that the specific strains are unknown, but it is highly unlikely, and supported statistically, that all patients had the same serotype of rhinovirus."
Huh? If the frequency and epidemiology of infection of each rhinovirus strain is unknown (which is true), then how is your conclusion "supported statistically"? You have no data from which to base such a statement. You're not only wrong but you've contradicted yourself. Face it Dan, you don't have a clue what you're talking about. |
