What Airborne Did Wrong

The headline at Yahoo reads “Supplement company Airborne to settle $23.3M suit” and quotes CSPI (Center for Science in the Public Interest) Senior nutritionist David Schardt as saying “There’s no credible evidence that what’s in Airborne can prevent colds or protect you from a germy environment…Airborne is basically on overpriced, run-of-the-mill vitamin pill that’s been cleverly, but deceptively, marketed.”

Unfortunately Airborne, which is a personal favorite our household in cold and flu season, ran afoul of the watchdog agency for two very good reasons:

1. In the US, a product carrying claims to cure or prevent disease is consider an unapproved drugs until it meets the standards of blinded, placebo-controlled studies following submission of an Investigational New Drug Application (IND) to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). [1]

2. They claimed scientific studies to back up their claims, which when looked at closely are suspect - being carried out by laypeople and by a company specifically created to do this testing.

Let me start by addressing the first issue. The FDA was created in 1906 ostensibly to protect consumers from quackery, snake oil salesmen and from spending their hard-earned money on cures and medicines that might not only be ineffective, but worse, dangerous. What is important to understand is that the FDA does not consider any herbal or vitamin product medicine, per se, able to cure or prevent disease, but as a food product. They are mostly interested in making sure of food safety in the instance of supplements such as Airborne. Had Airborne followed what the rest of the vitamin and herbal supplement market is doing and said from the beginning that it was intended as an immune booster, they could have stayed out of hot water (no fizz intended) and let consumers decide whether it was effective or not. As the rapidly growing natural health industry will attest, consumers are becoming more savvy and no longer dismiss the value, power, and effectiveness of traditional and wisdom herbs and natural therapies. We just have to be careful how we say it (wink).

However Airborne did capture a huge market share by insisting on being shown by traditional cold and flu medicines rather than in the vitamin supplements. Of course they were successful - look at all the knockoffs - AirShield, Walborne, etc. Who didn’t want to get on the bandwagon?

But please be clear on this –traditional cold and flu medicines do not prevent or cure colds and flus either (although studies do support zinc may shorten the duration of a cold). Medicines like NyQuil, Theraflu, etc. work by providing symptom relief –not curing or preventing. The reason that consumers interested in better health practices avoid these medicines is because they work (in general) by suppressing the body’s natural defense system. Herbalists, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) Practitioners and other natural health specialists advocate instead strengthening the body’s natural immune system to fend off disease - hence “immune boosters” are not vague ideas as suggested in the blog article cited above.[1]  It is a legitimate and well-respected health practice.

So, while Airborne may be guilty of false advertising, it does not follow the product is ineffective.

Their second mistake was to cite scientific evidence that really couldn’t stand up to close scrutiny. The public wants scientists to perform scientific testing. It set Airborne up for what it got:

“Basically, it was a non-scientific study where 2 dudes ran some tests. No scientists or doctors helped out. Turns out if you tout medical cures you need proof somewhere that isn’t your cousin and his friend in the shed fixing the numbers.”[2]

You have to use scientists.  Otherwise it just isn’t going to stand up to scrutiny. Of course what the blog writer above didn’t mention is that pharmaceutical companies basically do the same thing, funding their own scientific studies and then pumping out drugs, with the FDA’s nod of approval, into public consumption, which later often turn out to be dangerous after all (Vioxx, Zelnorm, etc.). And it is the consumer that pays the price. No wonder they’ve had enough and the FDA’s stamp of approval doesn’t quite have the same clout it once did among the educated health conscious.

To sum up -of course Airborne should pay up - what they did was deceptive. Is it such a big deal? Not really. It’s still a good product and I’ll recommend it unless the FDA tells me it’s being made in the barn with rats running through it, or they’re adding in things not on the ingredient list, or those ingredients are tainted with pesticides (although wait - that’s perfectly okay, isn’t it?). Those things I’m happy to be protected from.

Of course, I’ll be recommending Airborne for what it’s really good for!

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[1] Terra Sigillata : $23.3 Million Airborne False Advertising Settlement: “Created by a Schoolteacher!”
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[2] Airborne Lawsuit Settlement: 23.3 Million for False Advertising
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