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Biotech / Medical : GUMM - Eliminate the Common Cold -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hank who wrote (4021)	12/2/2001 1:25:53 PM
From: DanZ	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5582

<The Dr. Hirt study was conducted on a small number of patients from only ONE geographic area.> I don't have the complete Dr. Hirt study to refer to, but the abstract seems to dispute your claim that all the patients came from one geographic area. The abstract says: "Our study was conducted at four sites over a 5-month period." Do you know for a fact that those four sites were all in the same geographic location? What is the same geographic location to you? Some people might consider anywhere in the US the same geographic location whereas some might consider the same city the same geographic location. Let's get specific. Which four sites did Dr. Hirt's subjects come from? 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. Dr. Hirt's study concluded: "At study's end, the duration of symptoms was 2.3 days (±0.9) in the zinc group and 9.0 days (±2.5) in the control group—a statistically significant difference (p<0.05)." Let's assume for a moment that all the subjects in Dr. Hirt's study had the same two rhinoviruses and the results were the same as his wild virus study. That study would only prove that Zicam is effective against the two rhinoviruses tested. I am not a statistics expert, but it seems to me that the odds that Zicam is only effective against the two rhinoviruses tested would be the same as the odds that it is ineffective against the two rhinoviruses that Dr. Turner tested. The reason that I raise this point is because you said "One could argue that, assuming the majority of patients actually had a rhinovirus infection, they were all infected with the same strain and that Zicam is only effective against this one strain. Without the corresponding lab tests, you have no way of disproving this possibility." While I agree with you, one could also argue that there is no way to disprove that Zicam is only ineffective against the two strains that Dr. Turner tested. You apparently choose to look at only one side of the possibilities. Here is some more data from Dr. Turner's study: One subject received placebo medication for part of the study and active zinc medication for the remainder—this subject was considered not evaluable for the endpoints of the study. I don't understand how this happened if this was a double blind study unless it was by design. If by design, it makes no sense. This leads me to believe that something went awry here. Thirteen subjects either withdrew or were removed from the study prior to the virus challenge. Ninety one subjects, 41 randomized to active medication and 50 randomized to placebo, were challenged with virus and completed the study as planned. I don't follow your criticism of the number of patients enrolled in Dr. Hirt's study. 105 patients enrolled in Dr. Turner's study and 213 in Dr. Hirt's study. Thirteen subjects withdrew from Dr. Turner's study, so only 91 subjects completed it. Why are more than twice as many subjects in Dr. Hirt's study too small but half as many in Dr. Turner's study ok? If your answer is because nobody knows specifically which rhinovirus the subjects in Dr. Hirt's study had, I refer back to the the fact that the subjects came from four sites over a five month period. The number of patients in Dr. Hirt's study is statistically significant.