Using Race as a Weapon to Sell Vitamins

What’s the fastest way to throw away customers’ good will? Try equating the wearing of turbans with terrorism. It seems that vitamin makers Nature’s Plus felt threatened enough by Illinois senator Dick Durbin’s proposed bill that would require vitamin makers to disclose any harmful side effects of their products. As part of the ‘Nutritional Health Alliance’ (NHA), Nature’s Plus sent the fliers labelled with ‘GET A TURBAN FOR DURBIN!’ to customers in a hateful mail campaign, complete with scary monster font.

It’s hard to decide what’s more disturbing: The fact that there are still people in our country who think that all turban-wearing peoples should be associated with terrorism (and not the right-thinking association, ‘driving a taxi’) or that Nature’s Plus would rather mail this repugnant, slapdash hate-mongering prattle rather than admit that sometimes chemicals have side-effect. We’re not even pro-regulation on most vitamins and supplements, but Christ almighty, if this is the response of the vitamin industry to self-policing maybe we should be.

We think taking care of one’s body is a sin that invalidates our stated belief in the miracle of the creator’s intelligent design, but when we’re in a powdery mood, we’ve had good luck with Bulk Nutrition. (Thanks, Headturban!)

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