Continental, the
official airline of the Houston Astros baseball team, hits a foul ball, in my opinion, with a print advertisement in its in-flight magazine topped with the headline: "Grow Young with HGH."
Human Growth Hormone, after all, is banned in Major League Baseball and
condemned by MLB Commissioner Bud Selig.
I saw the ad yesterday when I flew Continental home to New Jersey from the TravelCom conference in Atlanta.
The advertisement, from
BIEHealth.US, is not for synthetic HGH, but for GHR (Growth Hormone Releaser), which is said to be a natural supplement that prods "your pituitary to secrete extra HGH and then accentuate them to full potential with a proper diet and HGH-releasing exercises," according to the website.
Some of these anti-aging products, with their hyperbolic claims, have been condemned by the
Federal Trade Commission, although I couldn't find a specific complaint about GHR.
Still, the ad in Continental's in-flight magazine refers to GHR as "the Reverse Aging Miracle" and goes on to say how HGH reverses hemorrhoids, arthritis and angina.
Wow, if only all those professional baseball players, believed to be weaned from steroids and possibly taking HGH, would opt for this natural HGH-releaser instead and perform workouts heavy on the "HGH-releasing exercises."
We'd have a whole new meaning for
"The Natural."C'mon Continental. You are a damn good airline. You are sending the wrong message and you are better than this.
UPDATE: As a commentator below pointed out, Continental doesn't publish its
in-flight magazine. It is published by
The Pohly Company.
However, Continental is responsible for its own brand, and associating the Continental brand with an HGH-like "natural" supplement, is a screwball move.
