Hippies will tell you that the big bad evil drug companies aka ‘big pharma’ will lie and cheat and use deceptive practices to sell you their evil drugs but don’t understand that the natural medicines aka poppycock aka homeopathy use the most deceptive tactic which is ‘you will probably get better if it’s not serious’.

So, treatment when you ingest their magical water, information pills you get better. And, stuff since it’s magical water, you don’t feel anything like you do with NyQuil which doesn’t make you better, it just makes you wasted so you don’t care how crappy you feel. Since you don’t feel anything you call it ‘non-invasive’. The truth is, it’s so non-invasive that there’s no invasion. There’s not even an army. I just extended that too far. Sorry.

Where was I? I’m talking about Airborne, one of the most recent bits of poppycock to hit the stands.

They just got spanked after being investigated for their claim that it cured colds or if you took it when you feel a cold coming on, you’d feel better within 3 days.

I’ll get to the cool part in a second, but let’s look at the claim, first.

If you feel a cold coming on… a mild cold, you’re going to feel differently in three days. You may feel worse, but if it’s a mild cold, you’ll feel better. Either way, the poppycock is counting on you not remembering the miss; the feeling worse part, but you will most definitely remember feeling better if you’ve taken something. It’s called a confirmation bias which means you will remember the stuff that confirms your beliefs. You’d also probably allow a couple days. If you felt better after 4 days, you’d give Airborne the credit.

Airborne’s claim isn’t that amazing.

If you began to feel sick, came over to my home and I put on a heavy pair of boots with some dull spikes on the top, hauled back and kicked you in the crotch as hard as humanly (not to be confused with humanely) possible, your cold would be gone within a week. Your cold symptoms would begin clearing up within a few days.

Yes, your teeth would still be chattering from the pain and you’d label my brand of medicine as ultra-invasive, but your wussified little cold wouldn’t seem so bad and it would be clearing up, too.

I’ve digressed. And how.

Airborne is currently shelling out over 23 MILLION BUCKS because their claims are misleading. They’re still going to be able to sell their magic nothing but the word COLD is going to be conspicuously absent from the package.

The ballsiest thing they did was say that they did a double blind, placebo controlled study but the company who did the study was a two person organization formed to do the study. The study was on the two guys who did the study. ABC News says “There was no clinic, no scientist and no doctors.”

That, my friends, is award winning ballsiness!

What is maddening is that if Pfizer had done this sort of thing, hippies would be losing their minds, storming the offices of the FDA (who I’m not a fan of, make no mistake) while screaming “YOU KILL CHILDREN! YOU WANT CHILDREN TO DIE!!! YOU HATE CHILDREN! YOU ARE A NAZI PEDOPHILE WHO HATES CHILDREN!!!” or some other statement.

I skimmed over the messages on ABC until I felt my brain turning to mush and apparently, the presence of ‘Big Pharma’ is, by its very nature deceptive and evil, but when a tiny independent company like Airborne actually do something deceptive, it’s okay.

Sure, Airborne brings in 200 million bucks a year, but that’s nothing compared to ‘Big Pharma’.

Well, here’s my ‘two wrongs make a right solution’:

Airborne has been ordered to refund 23 million dollars. If you don’t have a receipt, you can still claim up to 6 boxes @ 10.50 each.

I am. Maybe you’ll lie and cheat with me. I’m embarassed and ashamed but I think an extra 70 bucks will be nice. Actually, I have a couple of addresses, so it’s probably going to be more like 140 bucks. I think the IIG or randi.org might be getting some cash.

It just depends on how long I GET MY SETTLEMENT!!!! I WANT MY SETTLEMENT!!!

ABC NEWS