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| with diarrhea.38 Such symptoms could have as easily been associated with the mistaken use of Parthenium integrifolia (prairie dock or Kansas snake root), which is rich in sesquiterpenes that can cause some of these same symptoms. |
| In toxicity studies conducted in the 1950s, injectable preparations of echinacea in amounts exceeding normal dosage limits showed no toxic side effects. In 1989, researchers again found the polysaccharide fractions to be virtually nontoxic.8 In fact, caffeine is many times more toxic than echinacea. |
| Most toxicity studies of echinacea have been conducted on the polysaccharide fractions obtained from E. purpurea. In 1991 studies, high doses of oral and intravenous E. purpurea leaf juice were found to be virtually nontoxic in animals. Tests for mutagenicity and carcinogenicity all gave negative results.39 Additional studies to determine the toxicity of purified polysaccharides all suggest that they are nontoxic.40 |
| Between 1994 and 1996, a team of herbalists worked on a document known as the Botanical Safety Index (BSI) under the auspices of the Standards Committee of the American Herbal Products Association. The BSI contains a review of the relative toxicity of approximately 650 herbs in commerce. The committee reviewed the primary texts associated with medicinal plant toxicity and assigned each herb to a category that reflects a significant amount of the accumulated traditional and scientific data. According to an initial review of the data, echinacea appears to be free of side effects. |
| In the German Commission E monographs, considered by some to represent the most accurate information on herbal medicines available, there are few cautionary notes for echinacea. For E. purpurea the |
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