Is the placebo effect worth $6.99 a tube?

Do you take Airborne? You know that tasty fizzy miracle that will clear up that nasty cold. The one invented by a school teacher. It has vitamin c and other important ingredients. You’ve tried it, I’ve tried and it doesn’t work. But still it gets used. Why?
We want to believe just like Fox Mulder and hey, it was invented by a school teacher right? They must know something about germs they are around them all the time, kids are gross. That is a weird argument from authority, I usually listen to people like, oh I don’t know, maybe doctors when it comes to being sick and teachers when I am worried about my kids ability to read.
We still use it, we still believe, even after a class action law-suit was brought against the makers for false advertising complaints, they settled for around $23.3 million. I don’t know, if I had the cure for the cold, I wouldn’t have settled, I would have fought because I was right. Part of the false advertising stemmed from their claim that it was tested in clinical trials, turns out they paid two guys who started up a business just to test Airborne. There were no doctors or scientists, who know what the protocols were. One of them did almost graduate from college though. Again if I had the cure for the cold I would want rock solid proof if worked I would have hired the best to run the trials….hmmmm.
We can’t even say well all that vitamin c is good for a cold, that hasn’t been proven. Do a search for vitamin c on pubmed, most of the scientific research is not looking good for vitamin c.
I don’t take Airborne anymore, I can’t take the false hope, or giving my money to people who seem to be knowingly deceptive. Other people do, I won’t make fun, they believe and the placebo effect is powerful, who am I to mess with people’s anecdotal evidence?

Here are some places to find out more about Airborne, they will link you to even more info about the lack of efficacy:
http://www.everydayhealth.com/blog/zimney-health-and-medical-news-you-can-use/airborne-tablets-scam-costs-company-22-million-a-scambuster-update-2/


http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/makers-of-airborne-settle-false-ad-suit-with-refunds/



Want to look up studies on pubmed about vitamin c?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/