Vital Signs - Nostrums - Some Nasal Gels May Harm Sense of Smell
The Food and Drug Administration last year warned consumers to stop using Zicam Cold Remedy Nasal Gel and Zicam Cold Remedy Nasal Swabs, popular homeopathic remedies that contain zinc. Matrixx Initiatives of Scottsdale, Ariz., which markets them, has denied the zinc gels cause anosmia and called the conclusions “scientifically unfounded and misleading.” It did recall the products, the subjects of hundreds of lawsuits.
The new study was published in the Archives of Otolaryngology - Head & Neck Surgery.
The authors, Dr. Terence M. Davidson, who has served as an expert witness in litigation involving zinc nasal gels, and Dr. Wendy M. Smith applied nine criteria used in 1965 by Sir Austin Bradford Hill to demonstrate a causal link between smoking and lung cancer. The Bradford Hill criteria include an examination of the strength of the association between the risk factor and the disease, as well as the consistency, specificity, relationship in time, biological plausibility and experimental evidence, and whether greater exposure is associated with more disease.
Dr. Davidson, director of the nasal dysfunction clinic at the University of California, San Diego, said there is no danger from taking zinc gluconate orally but that when sniffed through the nose it can burn olfactory tissue.
Bill Hemelt, chief executive of Matrixx Inc., said the product was safe: “The common cold is the number one cause of loss of sense of smell, and naturally people who use the product and have a cold are misattributing the result to our product.”
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