One a Day® Vitamins by Bayer
What I used to
associate with Bayer
I remember commercials for Bayer Aspirin from when I was
younger. As a kid, I was definitely convinced that this “medicine” was what saved
people from heart attacks and did not even understand the effects that Aspirin
had in the body and how you “prevent” heart attacks for that matter. I managed
to find what I think might have been a similar example to some of the commercials
I remember watching from when I was younger. This commercial is from 2013:
Now, clearly it would be easier to mislead a kid that doesn’t
understand how blood thinners work compared to someone at a higher risk of a
heart attack. However, Bayer Aspirin was very much marketed as “how to prevent a heart attack.” Knowing that there is a lot that goes into heart health and
heart attack prevention, someone can easily understand that this commercial is
nothing more than marketing a brand of aspirin. However, this commercial sounds
almost like a cure for heart attacks for someone with limited knowledge on what aspirin is and what causes heart attacks.
Other Bayer Products
This marketing, as with other drugs and supplements, allows
companies to advertise and get consumers to associate its company name with
effective products to charge more money for their pills.
The One a Day website allows you to enter your gender, age,
favorite type of pill (gummy or not), if you are pregnant, and key personal health concerns to
allow you to “generate” your perfect Bayer vitamin match. All different vitamins
by Bayer can be sorted by form Health concern, type of supplement, category of
consumer, etc. on the website. The website is very easy to follow and the categories of different
health concerns by multivitamin are short and simple (immune support, memory support,
healthy heart, cold, women’s health, blood pressure, etc.) even though specific
health issues can incorporate many different things. If only maintaining a
woman’s health was as easy as taking a One a Day Women’s VitaCraves gummy everyday.
One a Day VitaCraves and Multivitamins all come in different
bright colors depending on the age and sex the pill is targeted to.
The listed “Key nutrient” of the One a Day VitaCraves
Regular Gummies were: Vitamin A, Vitamin, C, Vitamin D, Vitamin E, Vitamin B6,
Folic Acid, Vitamin B12, Biotin, Pantothenic Acid, Iodine, and Zinc. These
things made up a third of the things listed in my roommate’s Target brand women’s
daily multivitamin that said, “Compare to ingredients in One a Day Women’s” and
was almost half the price per pill.
Some past Misleading
Marketing
Bayer has been sued or notified for being misleading in its
claims that certain One a Day vitamins reduce certain risks of cancer or made
very specific health promotion claims that have been misleading.
In the case of prostate cancer, Bayer claimed that taking a
pill that contained selenium may lower a man’s risk of getting prostate cancer.
According to multiple studies at the time, there wasn’t enough evidence to say
that selenium lowered risk of prostate cancer more than a placebo pill, that more research was needed, and that it may increase risk of other health problems. Although advertising for this pill did raise
awareness for prostate cancer, the Center for Science in the Public Interest argued
that it is misleading to sell a pill off of claims that a vitamin will lower
your risk of cancer when there isn’t sufficient evidence to do so.
In the case of promoting breast health, Bayer has faced a
lawsuit due to listing it’s women’s vitamin as a major way to
“support breast health” because it has calcium and vitamin D. Again the Center
for Science in the Public Interest argued that this is a misleading way to
suggest that the pill prevents breast cancer. Bayer also listed taking one of
these pills as being a preventative breast cancer method along with getting
mammograms, eating a healthy diet, and doing self-exams.
These different colored bottles and Bayer labels along with
extensive and sometimes misleading health claims has turned a normal
multivitamin into overpriced pills that have misleadingly claimed
disease prevention in the past.
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