Airborne
| Recently Rosie O'Donnell accused Donald Trump, in response to the Miss USA story, of being a "snakeoil salesman". Donald was not happy about this accusation of fraud. Snakeoil became the rally cry of reformers at the turn of the century who wanted and got the government of the US to stop some of the most dangerous "patent medicines" from being peddled. For example quoting Wikepedia, "Towards the end of the period, a number of radioactive medicines, containing uranium or radium, were marketed. These apparently actually contained the ingredients promised, and there were a number of tragedies among their devotees; most notoriously, steel heir Eben McBurney Byers was a supporter of the popular radium water "Radithor". He contracted radium poisoning and had to have his jaw removed after taking more than a thousand bottles of "radium water". Water irradiators were sold that promised to infuse water placed within them with radon, which was thought to be healthy at the time." The snakeoil story is quite interesting in itself. It was and still is used in China as a liniment for arthritis. It turned out that when made in US and in England the snakes used were different than those in China and they did not have the same amount of the active ingredient. Only recently did we discover this ingredient. We now actually use that ingredient in a legitimate drug. Do you remember Carter's little liver pills? They were supposed to help your liver. These were marketed continuously on early radio, but there was no evidence it helped your liver. Wouldn't it be nice if we had a pill so that when we were in a crowd or on a plane the pill taken would protect us from one type of cold virus? Better yet maybe it could prevent us from catching all viruses and all bacterial infections including TB. So wondered a schoolteacher who developed and recently marketed Airborne. It has been a great marketing success like Carter's little liver pills but does it work? The ingredients are listed and include a few vitamins and a few herbs. Based on this why should it work? Will Airborne ever have scientific testing? What if we had a simple explanation of why we might be overweight? How about cortisol? Sounds good, right. So if we block cortisol we will lose weight. Simple and this notion has helped thousands of TV viewers to fork over money for a product for which there is no science behind it. Well, maybe as long as these drugs are not toxic to your liver and kidneys or any other organ, then maybe we should accept it all as placebo medicine. So entrepreneurs out there while the FDA is busy allowing traditional medicines to peddle there wares on TV, a multibillion-dollar industry, then you can just join in the profit making. Look at hormone replacement therapy being a cause of breast cancer and heart disease. That was not what "scientific medicine" told to us for years. You just have to ask the right question. How about asking some of these questions? A pill that blocks the toxicity to the liver caused by pain medicines or alcohol? It would be great before frat parties. A pill that makes you want to exercise? This would sell in the fitness centers. A pill that makes you think only positive thoughts? Imagine four hours of positive thoughts all in a row. Might sell with half the population. Maybe all we need is a pill to make people honest and just, but it would have to be very long acting. Then the snakeoil salespeople will just disappear and maybe even the legitimate drug advertisements on TV as well. | ||||||||||||||||||||
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