“I bought my 70-year-old father the testosterone boxer shorts. He loved them. We're going for where his ego might be.”
Who would want gonorrhea all over their boxer shorts? Lots of people, it turns out. In fact, Roger Freeman has built a comfortable small business on the concept.
His company, Infectious Awareables, sells boxers, neckties, bowties, and scarves imprinted with all manner of dreadful afflictions, from avian flu to West Nile virus and Chlamydia to syphilis. Then there are the designs only a scientist could love: microarrays, neurons, the human genome, and dental plaque—a nod to Freeman’s former career. He’s a retired dentist.
Freeman and his wife Felice Freeman set up the business in Encino, California, 11 years ago, having bought it from a company that was heading toward bankruptcy because it couldn’t figure out how to market its herpes ties. The Freemans purchased the remaining inventory and decided to put an educational spin on the business. Raising public awareness of disease and working with health-related charities—either by making donations or working together on projects—are now key goals of the outfit, along with turning a profit. On the back of every tie is printed a couple of sentences about the disease and its implications. “Mold continues to be a serious environmental issue, with far-reaching health-related, legal, and financial implications,” reads the mold tie. “The idea is that humor is infectious, education is infectious,” Freeman says.
The strategy seems to be working. Just one indication: Freeman and his wife, who handles marketing and customer service, used to go to as many as eight scientific conventions a year to peddle their unique pharma fashions. Now they’ve been able to scale back to just two—the annual meetings of the American Society for Microbiology (in Boston in June this year) and the American Public Health Association (in San Diego in October). “We just do lights-out business,” he says. “For three solid days, we don’t sit down.”
Most of the products are made of silk and manufactured in China. Many of the designs come straight from the scientists working with the pathogens or structures depicted. The Freemans have made enough of a name for themselves that researchers now routinely send them digital images of disease slides, eager to see them integrated into fashion. An artist might then tweak the colors or spacing of the patterns. “The West Nile virus came from Purdue,” says Freeman. “They were the first to identify it. Their only request was we do it in Purdue colors, which killed me because I went to Northwestern.”
While the bulk of sales are online, Infectious Awareables are sold in a few select retail outlets, such as university bookstores, science museums, and the gift shop at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Freeman says he’s careful to choose shops so that the products don’t offend—most reflect serious diseases, after all—and get taken out of context. But evidently, the humor does translate across borders. “We had some Chinese people come in about a month and a half ago,” reports Charlie Harkleroad, manager of the CDC shop. “They almost cleaned our entire stock out.”
As a resident of California—where shorts and flip-flops are acceptable business attire at many companies—Freeman doesn’t get much opportunity to wear his ties, he says. But pressed to pick his favorite, he chooses pneumonia, with its subtle two-toned pattern: “It’s very quiet, understated. You could wear it with a blue suit. You could wear it to a funeral if you wanted.”The all-time best seller is the tuberculosis tie, crawling with dozens of blob-shaped Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteria, which was one of the earliest products. The plague, available with the lethal Yersiniapestis pathogen stained in red against a midnight background or stained in gold against navy, is a close second. He considers the mold fungi tie, with its wispy flower-like shapes in cornflower blue and olive green, the most beautiful. “It’s gorgeous,” he says. “It’s a work of art. We’ve had people approach us to do this as actual artwork.”
Of course, perhaps one of the odd twists about what the Freemans do is that what’s a calamity for most of the world can actually be darn good for business. In short, scary headlines often boost sales. The anthrax attacks in 2001 and the recent spread of MRSA, the antibiotic-resistant “superbug,” both drove orders higher. The latest topical afflictions he wants to convert into fashion? Sleep disorders and climate change.
One disappointment was the Parkinson’s tie, which he sent to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. “They loved it,” he says. “But for political reasons they couldn’t do anything with it. It just never resonated.”
Another dud was a tie modeled on Mydoom, one of the fastest-spreading computer viruses of recent time. “I thought we were going to sell a kajillion,” he recalls. “But who knew that geeks don’t wear ties. I’ve got 500 Mydoom ties sitting around here.”
Over the course of the company’s history, it hasn’t all been fun and games. Freeman has gotten negative press a couple times, such as when a newspaper columnist accused him of making money off the backs of sick people. But the incident that affected Freeman the most was when he was contacted by a Midwestern woman whose son died of the plague. “She was very distraught that we were trying to capitalize on this disease,” he says. “I completely understood how she could interpret it that way. I explained to her our mission statement—that the plague isn’t dead. I just wanted to let her know that we fully understood, probably more than most, what it’s all about. I’ve never forgotten that one.”
His resolve to promote public awareness of serious public health issues in an irreverent way continues unabated. Most recently, Infectious Awareables has teamed up with the nonprofit California Family Health Council for a campaign directed at teens in southern California. The company plans to produce scarves printed with HPV, or the human papillomavirus, which can cause cervical cancer, and is a growing public health concern as it’s the most commonly sexually transmitted infection. Also in the works are boxer shorts and baseball caps promoting condom use. The design is coming from the winner of CFHC’s biennial condom package design contest held at local high schools. It has the words “be safe” written in graffiti style.
The plan is to have the threads available online in late spring or early summer, says Maryjane Puffer, CFHC’s director for clinical and community health programs. “It’s a great way to spread the message through a hip fashion,” says Puffer. She hopes the young will like the products as much as the old: “I bought my 70-year-old father the testosterone boxer shorts. He loved them. We’re going for where his ego might be.”
Joel Breman, M.D., an infectious disease researcher at the NIH’s Fogarty International Center, gives malaria ties and scarves to colleagues and friends to promote malaria control and awareness. “The U.S. population is pretty insular,” he says. “With the malaria tie, now malaria has come out of the shadows. It’s a conversation starter.”
To shop, suggest product lines, or just browse, Infectious Awareables is online at: www.iawareables.com