No changes after 102 years
Unproven COVID-19 cures today mirror dubious flu remedies of bygone days
With a pandemic raging, a spate of ads promised dubious remedies in the form of lozenges, tonics, unguents, blood-builders and an antiseptic shield to be used while kissing.
That was in 1918, during the influenza outbreak that eventually claimed an estimated 50 million lives, including 675,000 in the United States.
More than a century later, not much has changed. Ads promoting unproven miracle cures — including intravenous drips, ozone therapy and immunity-boosting music — have targeted people trying to avoid the coronavirus pandemic.
“History is repeating itself,” said Roi Mandel, the head of research at the ancestry website MyHeritage, which recently unearthed and compared pandemic ads published generations apart. “So many things are exactly the same, even 102 years later, even after science has made such huge progress.”
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.”
“Human beings haven’t changed all that much,” said Jason P. Chambers, an associate professor of advertising at the University of Illinois. “We’d like to believe we’re smarter, that we’d be able to spot the lies, but the ability of advertising to maintain its veneer of believability has only become more sophisticated over time.”
Readers who find the examples of quack ads from 1918 laughably quaint should know that many examples from 2020 are no less absurd. They include marketing for Musical Medicine, a compact disc that plays “specifically formulated frequencies to assist in boosting your immune system and weakening the virus,” and the Eco Air Doctor, a clip-on device that emits chlorine dioxide gas. The makers of both products were among the dozens of companies that received warnings from the FTC telling them to stop making unsubstantiated claims that they can help treat or cure the coronavirus.
As Americans begin receiving coronavirus vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna, authorities are worried that misleading advertisements might complicate the rollout or fuel skepticism about the treatments.