Like barbecues and weddings, colds have a season. When you’re in the business of selling zinc lozenges and over-the-counter medicine to help people deal with colds, what do you do when cold season is over? ProPhase Labs, the company that makes the terribly-named Cold-Eeze line of supplements and drugs, wants to get into the sex supplement business.

Supplements are a loosely-regulated business. Even when the substance that’s supposed to be inside actually is what’s claimed on the package, supplements just have to make promises to “promote” things like better digestion or hair growth or blood flow to the genitals.

Theodore Karkus, the CEO of the company that makes this product, ProPhase Labs, will not admit whether he has tried the supplement and found it effective, but the company marketing it, “TK Labs,” does happen to have his initials. I don’t know what that means. Whatever is in it, it’s better than selling illegal generic Viagra and claiming that it’s ground-up ants.

What we do know is that the company has made its (seasonal) fortune on selling zinc supplements meant to shorten colds, but some studies show that zinc lozenges don’t have any actual effect apart from the comfort of a tasty lozenge. Vitamin C may not be all that useful either.

Cold-Eeze CEO speaks about firm’s new male sex drive pill [Philadelphia Inquirer]

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