“Convenient Untruths”: An Unanticipated Opportunity for Science and the Public

摘要

In college, I heard an ad on TV that said, “Rolaids con- sumes 44 times its weight in excess stomach acid.” So striking (“44 times,” just imagine!) and also not just ev- eryday stomach acid but “excess” (conveying the sense of “you are a patient”). I was majoring in chemistry at the time but was also studying biology, and the claim didn’t seem right. The pH of “stomach acid” is ~1.5, and if there is excess, then there is just more, not just pH 0.007 or something. Furthermore, a Rolaids tablet is huge relative to the volume of gastric fluid being secreted at any time, at least as I sensed in my early days of biology awareness. SoI went to the lab and did acid-base titrations. The result was clear: the claim was not true unless the term “Rolaids” referred to the buffering agent that made up a minuscule amount of the pill. I wrote the manufacturer; no reply. But then, the ads stopped. I suspect others got onto this and complained with more credentials than those of a student. But I have never forgotten it.