This year, a company with a California address peddled products containing kratom, an herbal extract that has drawn concern from regulators and health experts, with the promise that it might “keep the coronavirus at bay.” The Food and Drug Administration sent the company a warning in May.
The claims are an echo from 1918, when an ad for Dr. Pierce’s Pleasant Pellets promised that the pills — made from “May-apple, leaves of aloe, jalap” — offered protection “against the deadly attack of the Spanish Influenza.”
Other flu-fighting products from back then included Cin-u-form lozenges, Calotab laxatives, Hudson’s Iron and Nux Tonic, Anti-kamnia tablets, Pepto-Mangan blood builders and treatments made with “syrup of hypophosphites, cod liver oil extractives, malt, iron, wine and wild cherry bark.”
An ad for another remedy, Neuffer’s Lung Tonic, amplified the fear of the flu by noting that the pandemic’s death toll was “more than double our total war casualties.” Peruna, a widely popular medicine that later became synonymous with quackery, promoted itself by claiming that “nothing is any better” to help “ward off Spanish influenza.”
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/24/business/media/dubious-covid-cures.html
Speak Your Mind
You must be logged in to post a comment.