Chinese physicians believe that medicinal herbs are effective in alleviating symptoms and preventing complications. Chinese herbal medicines are dispensed according to the particular symptoms.

This is an update of a Cochrane review first published in MLN2238 2006.\n\nObjectives\n\nTo assess the effectiveness and possible adverse effects of Chinese medicinal herbs in treating measles.\n\nSearch strategy\n\nWe searched the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Clinical Trials (CENTRAL) (The Cochrane Library 2009, issue 1) which contains the Cochrane Acute Respiratory Infection Group’s Specialised Register; MEDLINE ( 1966 to March 2009); EMBASE (1980 to March 2009); the Chinese Biomedical Database (1976 to March 2009); VIP Information (1989 to March 2009); and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) ( 1994 to March 2009). We searched the m et a Register of Controlled Trials for ALK tumor ongoing trials.\n\nSelection criteria\n\nRandomised controlled trials (RCTs) in which patients with measles without complications were treated with Chinese medicinal herbs.\n\nData collection and analysis\n\nThree review authors (YZ, RG, TW) independently assessed trial quality and

extracted data. We telephone interviewed the study authors for missing information regarding participant allocation. Some trials allocated participants according to the sequence they were admitted to the trials, that is to say, by using a pseudo-random allocation method; none of the trials concealed the allocation or blinding method.\n\nMain results\n\nWe did not identify any suitable trials for inclusion. In this updated review

we identified 61 trials which claimed to use random allocation. We contacted 29 trial authors by telephone and learned that the allocation methods used were not randomised. We excluded 34 studies because the patients experienced complications such as pneumonia. Both reasons excluded 10 studies. Another study was excluded because the trial author had not confirmed the diagnosis of measles. We were unable to contact the remaining seven trials’ authors, so that they require further assessment and, meanwhile are allocated to the ‘Studies awaiting classification’ section.\n\nAuthors’ conclusions\n\nThere is no evidence from RCTs for or against Chinese medicinal herbs as a treatment for measles. We hope high ATR inhibition quality, robust RCTs in this field will be conducted in the future.”
“Organic carbon (OC) and elemental carbon (EC) together constitute a substantial proportion of airborne particulate matter (PM). Insight into the sources of this major contributor to PM is important for policies to mitigate the impact of PM on human health and climate change. In recent years measurement of the abundance of the radioisotope of carbon (C-14) in samples of PM by accelerator mass spectrometry has been used to help quantify the relative contributions from sources of fossil carbon and contemporary carbon.