Airborne supplement scam costs makers $23.3 million

March 7, 2008

I just love it when practitioners of medical fraud get nailed, details below. Here’s a link to an excellent commentary on the whole sad affair from the Respectful Insolence blog.

The makers of Airborne–a multivitamin and herbal supplement whose labels and ads falsely claimed that the product cures and prevents colds–will refund money to consumers who bought the product, as part of a $23.3 million class action settlement agreement. The company will pay for ads in Better Homes & Gardens, Parade, People, Newsweek, and many other magazines and newspapers instructing consumers how to get refunds.

Concocted by second-grade teacher Victoria Knight McDowell and her screenwriter husband Thomas Rider McDowell, Airborne promised to “boost your immune system to help your body combat germs” and instructed users to “take it at the first sign of a cold symptom or before entering crowded, potentially germ-infested environments.” The company’s folksy “created by a school teacher!” slogan and insistence that the product be stocked with real cold, cough, and flu medicines instead of with dietary supplements, helped turn the company into an overnight success, as did an appearance by Victoria Knight McDowell on the Oprah Winfrey Show.

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