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Public health advocates are charging that Merck's entertainment product tie-in campaign for children’s Claritin with the movie Madagascar 3 is deceptive and dangerous because it could cause children to confuse medicine with candy.
In a letter to the Federal Trade Commission, the Public Health Advocacy Institute at Northeastern University School of Law in Boston and 10 other organizations requested today that the agency investigate the campaign.
"Marketing medicine directly to children at all, much less through entertainment tie-ins, is well beyond the pale and is not only inherently unfair, it is downright dangerous," said Mark Gottlieb, executive director for PHAI.
Coinciding with the release of the Dreamworks movie in June, the tie-in features the movie cartoon characters on packaging, in games, on stickers and in other giveaways for grape-flavored chewable children's Claritin tablets and grape-flavored over-the-counter allergy syrup.
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