Out, Damned Spot

The ear-bent, eyesore radio-TV audience with a long-frustrated urge to talk back to the commercials got a chance to do so this week--through its government. After six months of monitoring by its new radio-TV unit, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission began issuing complaints charging advertisers with using phony spot commercials on NBC, CBS and Mutual Radio (as well ajs newspaper ads).

The FTC hit three companies peddling arthritis and rheumatism palliatives: Buffalo's Mentholatum Co., maker of Mentholatum Rub; Manhattan's Whitehall Pharmacal Co., maker of Infra-Rub and Heet; and Jersey City's Omega Chemical Co., distributor of Omega Oil.

Typical spot commercial (for Mentholatum Rub): "These are arthritic hands. They belong to a retired foreman and 20-year sufferer of arthritic pain and misery. You're looking at them now as they experience a totally new kind of pain relief . . ." An Infra-Rub plug: "Brings comforting warmth from deep within . . . 146 doctors report success based on hundreds of cases." For Omega Oil: "It contains an active ingredient that actually penetrates the skin ..."

Charged FTC: the commercials for these products are "false." Not one of the products "is an adequate, effective and reliable treatment" as it professes to be; none that makes the claim actually provides a "new kind of relief"; none penetrates "below the skin"; none gives relief to last "through the night." The complaints gave the offenders 30 days to reply to the charges, set dates early in June for hearings giving them a chance to argue for comforting relief from FTC's decision to put the heat on Heet et al.

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