A Traveler’s Open Letter to Airborne Supplements
Travel Blog • Jim Benning • 03.05.08 | 11:24 AM ET
Oh Airborne, you nickel-sized fruit-flavored tablets that dissolve in water and promised to keep me healthy on long flights; you shrewdly marketed vitamins developed by a school teacher who, you say, studied the benefits of herbal therapies used in Eastern Medicine. I saw you displayed near the other vitamins in Trader Joe’s, in your neon-hued boxes. You called out to me and my yearning to stay healthy. I purchased you and drank you up, looking the other way when you left an unappealing algae-like film on the inside of my glass.
I took comfort in your claims that you would help ward off colds when all those around me were sneezing and wheezing and coughing.
And now, for $23 million, you have settled a lawsuit alleging false advertising.
Sure, you have admitted no wrongdoing. Yes, you maintain that you are an “immune booster.”
But this changes things. I will never feel the same way about you again. The green algae-like film you leave is no longer the only thing about you I find unappealing.
Related on World Hum:
* Three Travel Tips: Stay Healthy When You Fly
Email to friend
Twitter
del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Furl
Ma.gnolia
Mixx
Reddit
StumbleUpon
Yahoo! Buzz
Jim Benning is the editor and co-founder of World Hum.
TambourineMan 03.05.08 | 5:14 PM ET
Just pop some vitamin C, Jim. And if you catch an airplane cold, use the cowboy remedy: whiskey.
Terry Ward 03.06.08 | 10:13 AM ET
They didn’t work for me this week! Whiskey sounds like the trick…
Jim Benning 03.06.08 | 2:15 PM ET
Thanks for the tip, TambourineMan. I mean, Doctor TambourineMan. I’ll give it a shot.
Bowtrol 08.24.08 | 5:31 PM ET
I agree with TambourineMan on the Vitamin C. Take plenty and drink plenty of water and stay active in the days leading up to the flight. Regular exercise improves immune function (no more than an hour a day or it can have the reverse effect though).