How Life Healthcare Coped with the Terror of an ASA Investigation.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
The Advertising Standards Authority is one of the few regulatory bodies in the UK regularly prepared to tackle the untruthful and unsubstantiated claims made routinely in the alternative health industry. It is also one of the weakest regulatory bodies in the UK. Nothing could highlight that more than how Life Healthcare (trading under the url http://www.reverseageing.com/) dealt with an investigation.Life Healthcare had made an advertising leaflet for a product called Thyroid Support Formula and had a heading on the front page that stated "New Scientific Studies Prove That There Is Hope, Read On, and You'll learn the Secrets That Your Doctor Might Not Be Telling You about an Under-Active Thyroid". Particularly worrying was the claim that,
But the truth is that conventional medicine does not have the best testing or treatment methods for an under active thyroid. Just because your test results have come back negative for an under active thyroid doesn't mean you don't have it.
A complainant to the ASA expressed concerns that a leaflet from Life Healthcare was
potentially harmful because it discouraged people from seeking proper medical treatment or from following the advice of their doctor
and doubted that,
the claims made in the ad for the product's efficacy could be substantiated
The ASA took a look a the advertisement and also challenged Life Healthcare if they had proper authorisations to market their products and whether the testimonials and photos included in the ad were genuine.
So, pretty serious charges. How did Life Healthcare respond? They didn't. They completely ignored requests by the ASA to explain themselves. The ASA upheld all complaints and said,
The ASA was concerned by Life Healthcare's lack of response and apparent disregard for the Code, which was a breach of CAP Code clause 2.6 (Non-response). We reminded them of their responsibility to respond promptly to our enquiries and told them to do so in future.
Their action was,
We told Life Healthcare not to repeat the claims in future advertising. We urged them to seek guidance from the CAP Copy Advice team before advertising again and asked CAP to inform its members of the problem with Life Healthcare.
I, for one, am not convinced that this direction will be adhered to.
Life Healthcare appears to make a business from evading legal restrictions on its practice. The from page of its website informs us,
With draconian EU legislation pending for the UK marketplace your right to buy optimum dose nutritional supplements may be limited, and some ingredients may no longer be available. Fortunately as we are based outside the EU (in the Channel Islands), Life Healthcare can continue to supply these high potency supplements that may have to be withdrawn from the UK and Europe in the coming months and years.
The current weakness of consumer protection laws in the UK will indeed be strengthened in the next few weeks as vastly improved consumer trading legislation comes into force. Whether this makes any difference to companies such as Life Healthcare remains to be seen.
*****************************************************************************
Postscript
It would appear that fleeing to the channel island might not be the get out of gaol free ticket Life Healthcare hope for. Yesterday in parliament, the Minister for Health Dawn Primarolo, responded to a question asking what the Government was doing about such loopholes. She replied,
The FSA continues to work with the Ministry of Justice, the Department responsible for the Crown Dependencies, and the administrations in the Crown Dependencies regarding implementation of the food supplements directive and Nutrition and Health Claims Regulation to prevent trade in food supplements that would be illegal in the United Kingdom.
Labels: ASA, regulation, vitamins
posted by Le Canard Noir at
6:25 PM
10 Comments:
Wow, that's ridiculously close to the spelling for Thyroxine! Many of my patient's cannot read too well.
If you can buy it, then it must be safe and effective, right?
When you see a tuna mayonnaise sandwich in a shop fridge that bears the legend: "Caution, contents may be hot. Contains fish, egg, milk, wheat" then it seems completely plausible that everything you buy is regulated, safe and labels are there to mollycoddle you.
The very interesting Ashar, Rice and Sisson paper was based on the US experience but it was interesting how many medics did not understand that supplements etc. can be sold without FDA approval or pre-market evaluation.
Because the ASA exists, it implies that it has powers and that advertising must be truthful etc. In addition, I think it is very difficult to explain to someone that although it can be inadvisable to say something in an advert, it is perfectly within regulations to make the same claim in a webpage, newsletter, book etc.
Strictly speaking, just because your TSH has come back normal doesn't mean that you don't have a low T3 - it is unlikely, but it does happen.
Actually, the ASA is an example where self regulation is pretty effective. If advertisers refuse to follow the ASA's adjudications, then the ASA can recommend to publishers to refuse to carry the errant advertisements - and in practice such recommendations are followed. In particularly extreme cases, the ASA can refer the advertiser to the Office of Fair Trading (and this does happen - Ryanair is a recent example). All in all, I think that the ASA is not as weak as you might suggest.
The Channel Island 'health' purveyors are not uncommon.
Artrosilium was another.
T
This quote: "But the truth is that conventional medicine does not have the best testing or treatment methods for an under active thyroid. Just because your test results have come back negative for an under active thyroid doesn't mean you don't have it." reminded me of a passage in the Optimum Nutrition for the Mind book by Patrick Holford. I don't have a copy to hand, but the Optimum Nutrition Bible also makes reference to underactive thyroid and Patrick states: "blood tests are often unable to detect sub-clinical hypothyroidism, so it may be better to go by the symptoms [...] If your temperature before you rise in the morning is consistently below 36.5 degrees C, this suggests your thyroid may be underactive." He then lists 10 symptoms of hypothyroidism and writes "If you score five or more, an underactive thyroid may be contributing to your problem"
IIRC, the reference in ONM was a bit juicier than the ONB ref. I'll have to check it later.
NickA - I wish it were true that the ASA were more effectivel.
Look at how Boots simply get away with (almost certainly) knowingly untruthful claims by promising not to run their promotion again.
Boots zapped by Advertising Standards Authority
"Look at how Boots simply get away with (almost certainly)knowingly untruthful claims..."
It's depressing to think that companies like Boots have large marketing departments busily working out ways to get away, relatively unscathed, with wheezes like their CoQ10 campaign.
Particularly worrying, IMO, since we are being increasingly encouraged to view pharmacies as 'the NHS front door' and there appears to be official enthusiasm for extended roles for pharmacists, if press releases such as this are to be believed:
http://www.responsesource.com/releases/rel_display.php?relid=iEzXQ
"From Monday 19th May 2008 it might well be your pharmacist, and not your GP, who you can turn to if you get an allergic reaction. A new government backed initiative is attempting to make your high street pharmacists more aware of dealing with allergies, and an important port of call to offer advice and treatment..."
And guess what arrived with the copy of the caravan club mag...a copy of the ReverseAgeing brochure headed up by the Thyroid support brochure. I am all for supplements and feel very different when I take ginseng/ginkobiloba Omega 3 etc. However I feel completely ill if I miss my Thyroxine and easily go into a very deep sleep. I would love something that helped me to lose some of my symptoms such as weight gain but wonder if it really is just what I put in my mouth, sit down too much and just plain ageing. Nearly bought it though!!!
I also had the Thyrosine Leaflet in a magazine recently. I ordered some from reverseageing.com. It said "first class post". I stupidly thought that I would get it within a few days. Eleven days later, still nothing and no reply to my email or msg left on their answermachine. I did however, get an answer on the telephone today (they didnt say their company name on picking up....). A very bad-tempered woman said I should get in another 7 days. I said I thought it was supposed to be first class post, she said "it is, we are just busy". No prizes for customer relations there then! I ordered this product because I have had a diagnosed under-active thyroid for 14 years (im 38), I still suffer from tiredness and slight weight-gain etc etc, as listed on their enticing leaflet..but I am getting a little edgy about how competent this company are now after reading all this, and how the medication will affect me. I did telephone reverseageing before I ordered to ask if it was safe to take this medication with Thyroxine and other medication I take (including antidepressents and betablockers) and they said that there were no problems that they were aware of ! Any comments...? MISTIBLU
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