eMarkLee

Airborne, $4.99 – $7 at your local Trader Joe’s or online, seems to have quite a following. It’s a tablet you throw into water to get the cool alka-seltzer style fizz that is supposed to prevent colds, designed by a second grade school teacher who was “sick of getting colds”. For 10 tablets, we’re talking about a whopping .75 per pill??? Is it really worth it? Let’s take a closer look.

Let’s start with the ingredients:

Ok. Wait a sec. The directions say “Repeat every three hours as necessary. “. That’s a shitload of vitamins that you are taking.

First you are taking 1000mg, or 1633% of your daily recommended allowance…EVERY THREE HOURS?!!?! Vitamin C is a good vitamin, but there has been some speculation that it could cause kidney stones and diarrhea. Here is just one such opinion, which has a doctor saying not to exceed 500mg, much less 1000mg EVERY THREE HOURS!

Second, you are taking 5000 IU, or 100% of your daily recommended allowance of Vitamin A EVERY THREE HOURS!!!! Excessive Vitamin A can apparently cause birth defects, liver abnormalities, reduced bone mineral density that may result in osteoporosis, and central nervous system disorders. I don’t want any of those, especially birth defects or abnormalities that affect my liver (I need it to absorb beer).

Third, you are taking 30IU of Vitamin E, the 100% recommended daily dosage of course, with each fizzy cocktail you mix up. Hmm, let’s see….Vitamin E can cause heart failure at high IUs.

With all these questions, how can a cocktail of vitamins from a untrained 2nd grade teacher be so popular? Apparently some good celebrity endorsements, a fake study, and Oprah. There was a Good Morning America story that ran last year where David Kroll, a pharmacologist at Duke University Medical School, said, “Simply washing your hands during cold and flu season is a much more effective way of preventing colds.”

I think I will listen to a pharmacologist at Duke Med School over a second grade teacher, especially for $5-$7 for each package of fizzy goo.