Here’s one that’s bugged me for a while. There’s a CLARINEX commercial I’ve been hearing on the radio. It starts out with the Overture to Tommy playing and then some dude comes on and says something like:

Every day millions of people in the United States wake up to billions of allergens.Introducing CLARINEX brand of desloratadine tablets.One tiny blue pill.CLARINEX provides receptor protection to help block histamine. 

First, so what if people wake up to billions of allergens? Many of those millions in the US don’t have a problem fighting those allergens. Second, CLARINEX is one tiny blue pill. AND? I think where they’re going is to get you to think “one tiny blue pill will help you fight those allergens” without saying it. Finally, why would you want to block histamine? From their website here’s what histamine is supposed to do:

Histamine, in turn, makes your tissues secrete fluids and become irritated. The result is a runny nose, nasal congestion, sneezing, watery eyes, and itching of the nose, ears, and throat. Your body is trying to expel the pollen you breathed in. 

Ah, so since I wake to billions of allergens, I want to take one tiny blue pill to make my body stop producing histamine so that it can’t expel the pollen. So CLARINEX wants me to go to my doctor to get a perscription for a drug that will shut down my body’s natural defense against those allergens. Got it. I think I’ll pass.This kind of market-driven logic is one reason why my family practices homeopathy.