This is the big write up I just got in my e-mail from the doc.
The makers of Airborne, a line of popular herbal supplements that was marketed as a “miracle cold buster,” have decided to settle the false-advertising complaints in a class-action lawsuit for $23.3 million, according to one of the plaintiffs in the suit.
While agreeing to reimburse customers for up to six purchases of Airborne products, the company made no stunning admissions. “Defendants deny any wrongdoing or illegal conduct, but have agreed to settle the litigation,” the company said in a statement.
Under the agreement, a special Web site was created here to accept claims from customers, who have spent far more than $23.3 million on the range of Airborne products, from Airborne On-the-Go and Airborne Nighttime to Airborne Gummi and Airborne Power Pixies, which is sweetened for children.
Who would ever believe that “an effervescent dietary supplement that was created by a school teacher” could cure the common cold? Evidently, quite a few people: the company says it took in more than $100 million from sniffly consumers through 2006, who followed the company’s advice to take the stuff at the first sign of symptoms and to expect relief within an hour or two.
Airborne carved out its niche through a combination of catchy commercials, star power and savvy placement on drugstore shelves. Dietary supplements are usually gathered in one place and cold medicines in another, but Airborne usually sits right next to NyQuil, without the trouble of Food and Drug Administration testing and approval.
Oprah Winfrey, Howard Stern, Kevin Costner and other stars endorse the product, and the teacher-inventor has appeared on the “Dr. Phil” and “Live With Regis and Kelly” television shows and others, chattering away about Airborne’s benefits.
Elise Donahue, a former Proctor & Gamble executive who was hired as chief executive of the company in 2005, spoke to Rob Walker of The New York Times Magazine a few months later about the sales pitch:
She says that Airborne buyers feel that “if a schoolteacher who’s around germy little kids all the time can find something that keeps her from getting sick,” then her solution should work for them too. Similarly, the cartoon characters on the package lend a friendly, almost nonmedicinal aura to the product that stands out in the cough-and-cold aisle. (Although it stands out just a bit less lately, since drugstore chains and others have introduced copycat products with cartoon-character packaging.) The silly cartoon feel has carried over into Airborne’s first TV advertisements.
The company also said it had scientific evidence to support its marketing pitch. But the lawsuit that resulted in the settlement this week was sparked by an ABC News report last year saying that the clinical trial the company offered as proof of the product’s effectiveness was highly dubious:
Airborne said that a double-blind, placebo-controlled study was conducted with “care and professionalism” by a company specializing in clinical trial management, GNG Pharmaceutical Services.
GNG is actually a two-man operation started up just to do the Airborne study. There was no clinic, no scientists and no doctors. The man who ran things said he had lots of clinical trial experience. He added that he had a degree from Indiana University, but the school says he never graduated.
Ms. Donahue, the chief executive, responded by dropping the cold-curing claims at once, saying that they were made before she joined the company, and switched to calling Airborne an immune-system-boosting supplement. “The best proof that the product works was that 40,000 customers contact the company every year,” ABC quoted her as saying.
An official at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a food health and safety advocacy group that helped bring the lawsuit, disagreed. “There’s no credible evidence that what’s in Airborne can prevent colds or protect you from a germy environment,” David Schardt said in a news release.
Will this latest chink in Airborne’s armor hurt sales? That will be entirely up to consumers, who have begun to desert echinacea, another popular herbal remedy, after studies slammed its purported cold-fighting properties. Of course, the hopper keeps spinning, and another study popped up last month claiming it could work after all.
