Miscellaneous

I?m not the first to riff on dumb warning labels. But the one I?m looking at now, on a bottle of aspirin, is too tempting to pass up. The one that provoked this post is the alcohol warning:

If you consume 3 or more alcoholic drinks every day, ask your doctor whether you should take aspirin or other pain relievers/fever reducers.

I wonder how that conversation with my doctor would go:

Me: Doc, I drink a fifth of vodka every day, and the problem is that it gives me headaches. I usually take aspirin for the headaches. What do you think?

Doctor: Let?s see ? a fifth of vodka and aspirin ? hmmm. My advice to you is to stay away from that aspirin.

As we continue to read the warning label, we find this gem:

Do not use if you are allergic to aspirin.

This warning might make sense if aspirin were merely an ingredient; if the word ?aspirin? appeared no place else except in fine print on the ingredients list. But this label appears on a bottle of ASPIRIN. I mean, the word ASPIRIN ? in all capital letters ? is the biggest word on the front label. If I know I?m allergic to aspirin, and if I somehow miss the word ASPIRIN on the front of the bottle, what are the chances that the allergy warning will save me a trip to the emergency room?