The Cocoa Krispies "Immune Support" Claim: An Opportunity
I would like to see every single skeptic on the planet drive home the following point over and over until they get banned from public places, shunned by their friends and ostracized by their families.
Recently, Cocoa Krispies started placing the following completely legal claim on boxes of Cocoa Krispies, or as I like to call them, Choco Childhood Diabetes Bombs:
"NOW HELPS SUPPORT YOUR CHILD'S IMMUNITY."
Now, I completely hate the scumbag who proposed this, and I want to vomit on the shoes of the dirtbag who signed off on the campaign, but I'm an optimistic fellow. I see an opportunity to make a point about how worthless vague claims of "supporting immunity" are. Technically, if a child had no other food and caloric intake would keep the child alive and, by extension, "supporting the kid's immunity," then, yes, this is true. But by any reasonable measure, these teeth-rotting boxes o' obesity have no effect on the body's ability to fight infection.
Since this is clearly a cynical and bald-faced attempt of Kellogg's to try and make unearned money off of parents' fear of swine flu, and almost anyone can see this, we should use this misguided advertising campaign as a point of comparison: if freaking Cocoa Krispies can legally make this claim, how much do you think the claim is actually worth?
Also, I hope Snap, Crackle and Pop get killed in a carjacking.
On Wednesday, since we have been talking about alternative medicine in my class, I think that I am going to bring an assload of Krispies products to class (I saw these in my local store today), as well as bowls and spoons and milk, and we're going to sit around and boost our immunity together.
HJ
Seed Newsvine
5 comments:
The tragedy is that almost anyone can see this claim is bogus when it's made in the cereal aisle (at least once the Today show points it out to them). But they never realize that the same claim is made with the same amount of supporting evidence in the "drug" aisle.
Not that I want to step on your teaching toes (they have such cute polish!), but bringing in supposedly medical items that make the exact same claim as the Cocoa Krispies would be an instructive demonstration.
Does this mean if I feed my kids Cocoa Krispies and they get sick, I can sue their ass?
Anonymous: Please do.
Flavin: I bought two gallons of milk and had a coupon for chocolaty health-in-a-box. And I'm driving to work tomorrow, so I don't have to lug it all around on the bus! Yay! We're going to get immuno-boosted. I am also thinking that I will show an advertisement for "vitamin gummies" that I have been seeing. They also claim to "support immunity". Essentially, they are candy for infantile adults. I don't want to spend the money on the adult candy.
Is it me, or do people not realize that boosting immunity means that your body would attack itself and you would have an autoimmune disease?
HJ
PS, Ben, Flavin, Ziztur and friends:
I'll be in town tomorrow night. One night this weekend. I'm thinking Friday night would be good for me if people wanted to get together for intellectual smugness and beer. Lemme know if you are free, either here or through my littletinyfeardemon email account.
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