New York Is Now the Umpire State

While the New York State legislature is having a slapfight with itself (rendering Albany lawmakers even more ineffectual than usual), some people are picking up the slack for the slack-offs.

Problem is, although the inmates are no longer running the asylum, the goo-goos are.

Start with the fine folks at the State of New York Department of Health. They’ve launched a campaign called Tobacco Free Grocery that features a full-page newspaper ad that shows supermarket items such as bread, strawberries, Swiss cheese, broccoli, eggs – and a little pile of cigarettes.

“Which item doesn’t belong?” the headline asks. The copy asks readers to “Ask your supermarket to stop selling tobacco products.”

And if supermarkets don’t, New York City wants them to show photos of “blackened lungs, oozing decay” at the checkout counter. As New York Times columnist Clyde Haberman describes it, the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene also wants people to see “what cancer of the mouth and throat look like.”

That’s on top of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s campaign to cut salt intake in half at New York restaurants. Not to mention the city’s mandate to include calorie counts in restaurant menus and its ban on trans-fats.

New York: The Umpire State.

As in, you’re out.

Big Headache for Tylenol

So all of a sudden The Makers of Tylenol® are running – yes – full-page newspaper ads addressing “the safety of acetaminophen, the medicine in TYLENOL®.”

Here’s their pitch:

[When] used as directed, TYLENOL® is a safe trusted, and effective pain reliever . . .

However, as with any medicine, it’s important for you to know that misusing TYLENOL® can be harmful. If you take more than the recommended dose (overdose), you can cause serious liver injury.

The ad is a response to news reports that the FDA is mulling restrictions on acetaminophen after a series of accidental overdoses, including one last week.

Of course, seeing the current ad,  you can’t help but remember the Great Tylenol Tampering Scare  of 1982, in which seven people were killed in Chicago by cyanide-laced Tylenol. (It also doesn’t help that that unsolved case was recently reopened .)  In 1982, Tylenol’s response was a textbook example of effective crisis management, and the brand emerged largely intact.

In this case, though, it’s a category scare, not a brand scare. That’s a lot tougher to fight.

Somebody give The Makers of TYLENOL® an Excedrin.