Vitamin supplements fooling consumers
By Chris Cavagnaro
When I lived in the dorms, I caught colds all the time. I was always amazed that every time I got sick, people would stress that I should take a ton of vitamin C or some other sort of alternative cold remedy.
The most popular of these supposed cold fighters was always Airborne, a tablet that dissolves in water to create a fizzy orange cocktail of vitamins and chemicals that allegedly help boost your immune system to fight off a cold. The common opinion in the dorms always seemed to be that the best way to handle a cold wasn't to eat well, stay hydrated and get rest, but to pump yourself full of vitamins.
The pervasiveness of natural cures and dietary supplements in our society is astounding. Every grocery store or drug store has a large section devoted to vitamins and natural remedies, and other chains like Whole Foods and The Vitamin Shop have aisles of supplements ranging from echinacea to artichoke extract. The dietary supplement craze has created a multibillion dollar industry, and the makers of Airborne have grossed millions of dollars in sales.
The claims that producers make about their supplements make them sound very enticing. Who wouldn't want a cure for the common cold? The makers of Airborne claim that it can be used daily for cold prevention, or it can be taken at the first sign of cold symptoms to prevent a full-blown cold.
Airborne is marketed as the creation of a school teacher (why anyone would want to treat their cold with something created by a school teacher rather than a doctor is beyond me), and the Airborne Web site claims that Airborne is made with seven cold-fighting herbs used in eastern medicine, amino acids, electrolytes and anti-oxidants.
But the makers of Airborne cannot seem to keep their story straight. In an investigation by "Good Morning America," Elise Donahue, the CEO of Airborne, said Airborne is not a cure for the common cold, but can only boost a healthy person's immune system. "Good Morning America" also found that the clinical study Airborne used to substantiate its claims was done not by scientists or doctors, but by a two-person company created solely to do a study on Airborne, run by a man with a fake degree. Airborne still stands by the study, but is removing it from all its packaging because, as Donahue stated: "We found it confused consumers ... Consumers are not really scientifically-minded enough to be able to understand a clinical study."
This is exactly the mind-set the producers of supplements like Airborne want to propagate in society. The reality is that supplements are barely regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, and manufacturers can produce, sell and market supplements without FDA approval as long as the ingredients won't harm anyone. Unlike drugs, supplements do not need to have proven efficacy and manufacturers can claim that a supplement has almost any health benefit, even if it is unsubstantiated. And like Airborne, the benefits of most supplements are not backed up by science. Even the effectiveness of vitamin C, the most popular health supplements in the United States, is questionable at best.
But if the health benefits of supplements are mostly unsubstantiated, why are they so popular? There are two main contributing factors for this. First, the supposed benefits of supplements are, indeed, very alluring. It would simply be great if a combination of vitamins and herbs could cure the common cold, but the surprising reality is that medical science has not yet figured out how to attack viruses that cause it. Second, supplement producers exploit the hope that there are alternative cures to common ailments that medical science has yet to solve, encouraging people to rely on anecdotal evidence rather than the scientific method. Supplemental producers are even suggesting that the medical community is conspiring to hide real, natural cures to make money on expensive pharmaceutical drugs.
Most dietary supplements are harmless - if you think they help you, go ahead and take them. But beyond some sort of placebo effect, products like Airborne simply do not do anything. And until consumers stop buying supplements, companies are surely going to continue to make billions of dollars selling products that are nothing more than a healthy dose of placebo.
Chris Cavagnaro is a senior political science major.