Glaxo: Bottling Spin, Not Vitamin C
6 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // March 31st, 2007 // 4:18 pm
Greatly embarassed by a pair of 14-year-old schoolgirls from New Zealand, whose science project revealed its Ribena blackcurrant drink contained absolutely no vitamin C, Glaxo has come up with an explanation as to why its labeling and ads claimed otherwise.
The reason: Ribena bottles and cartons were left on store shelves too long. “Our testing equipment in New Zealand and Australia was not sensitive enough to pick up the fact that the vitamin C was degrading,” says a spokeswoman for Glaxo, which pled guilty in New Zealand to misleading consumers. New lab tests indicate the problem hasn’t shown up in other markets.
Rubbish, says, John Birkbeck, a professor at Massey University’s Institute of Food Nutrition and Human Health. “If they’re properly sealed…vitamin C should be fairly stable. I’m not convinced by that argument at all. Anyhow, there’s use-by dates on those things. If that is really the reason, and I seriously doubt that it is, then there’s something wrong with the use-by date.”
Fascinating. First, Glaxo wants consumers to drink Ribena. And when that doesn’t work out, Glaxo wants consumers to drink the Kool-Aid. Caution should be urged if the company starts marketing truth serum.
Further reading:
The New Zealand Herald;
The Age.
[tags]GlaxoSmithKline, Ribena[/tags]
ROBERT FIDDAMAN
Meet GSK’s Larry Liebena - http://fiddaman.blogspot.com/2007/04/meet-gsks-larry-liebena.html
Laurie
So Vitamin C only degrades in New Zealand??
ed
Hi Laurie,
Yes, apparently it’s best to drink your Ribena in the US or perhaps Europe.
ed
Laurie
From the “official” Ribena site:
“The case came about because the method we had used for testing Australian and New Zealand products was not sensitive enough to measure the natural break down in Vitamin C that occurs over time while this type of product is on shelf.
First things first: we wanted to reassure you this isn’t the case in the UK”
This is the greatest example of SPIN that I’ve ever seen!!! It makes absolutely NO sense at al!!
ed
Yes, it is disconcerting to think bottles are checked in one country but not another. Or maybe the use-by date is wrong in one country, but not another. Or maybe there’s some other reason for all this confusion.
MJ
I can claim the dubious label of being a Glaxo baby in Wanganui in the late 60s. Much like Nestle but without the same level of hype and anger directed at them, Glaxo is responsible for leading people away from proper nutrition into quick and easy alternatives; they then have the absolute cheek to attach these with a ‘healthy’ spin.
Nestle drove women in the 3rd World countries away from natural breastfeeding of their babies, thereby wasting a natural resource and creating further poverty in their communities as people struggled to pay for Nestle’s baby milk.
Glaxo’s spin was that their dried up cows milk product produced bonny babies. Ribena is sold on the basis that there is more vitamin C than in oranges. Consumers believe products are what they say they are and someone is out there checking and testing these baby formulas, drinks etc and we don’t have to worry. That’s right, 14 year old girls get to check them occasionally in a science experiment. And if they’ve got the balls to do something about it and there’s media interest then a big company may get its wrist slapped. But they still think consumers are stupid and will believe all that spin as they try to take away our freedom to choose how we try to stay healthy and what herbal remedies we may choose over their toxic drugs….. and so on. Makes my blood boil!