International Drug Company Caught in a Lie

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File this under 'don't believe everything you read,' and also 'little people CAN make a difference.'

The international pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline is paying damages in New Zealand after a science experiment carried out by two 14-year-old high school students proved that the company's soft drink Ribena, which was advertised as containing a full day's rations of vitamin C, actually contained no detectable traces of the vitamin.

As the news article in the International Herald-Tribune reports:

"The multinational company admitted to 15 charges of misleading advertising between 2002 and 2006 in a suit filed by the Commerce Commission, a consumer watchdog, after a 2004 school science project exposed the false claims.

Ribena has long been sold as a healthy drink based on advertisements that black currant juice has more vitamin C than orange juice. Its New Zealand advertisements claimed Ready to Drink Ribena had 7 milligrams of vitamin C per 100 milliliters ( 0.25 ounce per 3.4 fluid ounces).

But high school students Anna Devathasan and Jenny Suo, then 14, found it contained almost no trace of vitamin C after testing the children's syrup-based drink as part of a science project in 2004."

GlaxoSmithKline will pay $217,000 New Zealand dollars, or about US $156,000, in fines—which is doubtless the tiniest of drops in the bucket, but still.

Caveat emptor, and three cheers for the power of finding out the answer to a question for yourself.

web address: http://suicidegirls.com/news/culture/20809/International-Drug-Company-Caught-in-a-Lie/