Posted by misty99 on April 13, 2002, at 7:23:40
In reply to Re: St. John's Wort No Better Than Placebo , posted by JohnX2 on April 10, 2002, at 15:21:40
John,
Obviously, I may be coming at this from a biased point of view since I feel St. John's Wort has helped me more than many of the antidepressants I have taken. Anyway, in reading the results of the study, it said participants were required to have a minimum of 20 on the Hamilton Score of Depression but I didn't see what the maximum requirement was if there was any. The reason why I am asking is if 14-17 is considered mild to moderate, it would just seem to me if the participants have a score much higher than 20, then essentially, participants don't really have true moderate depression. Therefore, I would think that would invalidate the results of the study, since the aim is to figure out if SJW works for moderate depression. Perhaps, I am not looking at that correctly and that's why I was glad to see this thread because I hoped someone could enlighten me.
Also, I truly question how any study can really be fair and accurate if all the major researchers involved had ties to drug companies. Please understand, I am not accusing anyone of unethical behavior but even the appearance of a conflict of ethics does not contribute to a good research study.
I did look to see if anyone had ties to any herbal company or to the folks who made the brand of St. Johns Wort that was used in the study but I didn't see anybody listed. So if I have overlooked anybody, my apologies.
Anyway, when I have more time, I intend to thorougly read the article on the American Medical Association website to see what went on. I don't have the link but go to http://www.google.com and plug in American Medical Association into the search box and when you go to the AMA Site, the article is on the home page.
I look forward to hearing what other people think.
Misty99
poster:misty99
thread:102603
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020408/msgs/102943.html