Misleading statements about vitamin C and the common cold in article on treatments for common cold in children by Gill et al. (2024)

This is comment on:

Gill PJ, Onakpoya IJ, Buchanan F, Birnie KA, Van den Bruel A. 
Treatments for cough and common cold in children. 
BMJ. 2024 Jan 25;384:e075306. 
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38272497 

Gill et al. reviewed common cold treatments for children [1]. In Table 2 they refer to our Cochrane review on vitamin C and the common cold [2] and state the summary of evidence as “No consistent effect [of vitamin C] on the duration or severity of colds”. The topic is not discussed any further in the text section.
    In fact, in our Cochrane review we calculated that in placebo-controlled trials, regular >0.2 g/day vitamin C shortened the duration of colds in children by 14.2% (7.3 to 21%; P = 0.00005); Analysis 2.1.2 (Trials with children) [2]. Furthermore, our calculation is based on 14 comparisons, whereas Gill states in their table that the number of vitamin C studies in our review on was 7. Thus, in contrast to Gill’s statement, our meta-analysis found that there is a consistent beneficial effect of regular vitamin C administration on common cold duration in children.