Healthy Skepticism Library item: 1374

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Out and About Department: Parody
LA Times 2003 Aug 4

Full text:

Los Angeles CA: Tight end Marvynn “the Slipper” Marsh, the Raiders’
brilliant broken field runner and receiver of over 300 touch-down passes,
is the first player to speak openly about the new sponsorship arrangement
between the NFL and pharmaceutical giants GlaxoSmithKline and Bayer. The
two companies now have exclusive marketing rights for all NFL games and
related promotional events. In speaking now, Marsh has scooped famed coach
Mike Ditka, who is slated to appear in a series of ads promoting the drug
giants’ new rival to Viagra. Called Levitra, the new drug is being promoted
using the famed Olympic slogan, “Longer, Taller, Faster, Stronger”.

Marsh has commented to the media on several occasions now. His repeated
positive comments about the new drug (which he has obtained on
“compassionate” grounds, as it is not officially released in the U.S.) have
led to suspicions that he is receiving payment from the manufacturers — an
accusation that Marsh has vehemently denied. “I ain’t no bad old nigger!”
said the irate Marsh last Tuesday at a press conference yesterday in the LA
Press Center. “I don’ take no hand-outs from no white folks!”

After the press conference, Marsh pointed out to reporters that his contact
with the pharmaceutical companies was actually a black former football
player, Ridley “the Wall” Ripley, retired center with the Chicago Bears —
in a neat twist, Mike Ditka’s old team. “Rid got me goin’ on this stuff. He
my man!…..no, no, not like that: I mean he got me started and I am truly grateful
to that man.”

“I like Levitra coz it’s good!” crowed an enthusiastic Marsh to reporters.
“Before, when I was in the shower, folks didn’t give me no respect. I was
always small, especially after a game. Now it’s completely different. Now,
I pop a Levitra just when the ref ends the game. Now they all stop to check
it out! They can’t believe it’s real! That’s what they say: ‘Is it really
real?!’ I tell them it’s totally real.”

Marsh says he has upped his standard quota of one sex act per 24 hours to
three, without showing signs of fatigue. The only changes, he says, is some
darkening of the toenails, pallor around the groin area, chronic headaches,
and a persistent rash on his back. “I think that’s where they grab me. I
sure hope so, anyway”, added Marsh, showing his only sign of hesitation in
his praise of the new drug.

As for his performance on the field, Marsh says there has been no effect.
“I can still do my tight end thing, just like before. Even Coach (Ian
Bryant of the Raiders) says I’m just as hot on the field as ever.”

Notably present at the press conference were representatives of
GlaxoSmithKline and Bayer, handing out free samples of Levitra to male
reporters — and in a nice touch, handing out tablets to female reporters
as well, in small pink packets with lace trim. “Frankly”, said Glaxo
representative Michael Fleming, source of the original announcement about
the promotional deal, “women get as much benefit from Levitra as men. The
myth of female sexuality being different from male sexuality is one we’d
like to explode. Just watch: in our opinion, Masters and Johnson hadn’t a
clue. We’re making history here.”

Estimated to be worth at least $5 billion to the two drug companies, the
deal between them and the NFL is slated to run for 3 years.

Marsh is unrestrained in his praise of the drug and of the deal itself.
“Man, I was nobody till this came along. Now I’m somebody. I’m gettin’ all
the free samples I can now. Who knows what’s going to happen in 3 years?
I’d do the poster boy thing any day, if they’d let me.”

“I’m proud of who I am now. Real proud! I may have quit school, I may have
been busted for manslaughter, drug stuff and all that, I may have had real
trouble keeping goin’ before. But now I got something! I’m a somebody.
Nobody mess with me, man. Nobody.”

Michael Fleming announced that Marsh has apparently agreed to go on a 6
week speaking tour in the NFL off-season, promoting Levitra and football in
general. He’ll be visiting elementary schools and reform schools across the
U.S., offering students a positive role model and his own exciting
experiences to encourage them to be what Fleming calls “the best they can
be.”