Doctor's snotklap for winter 'immune boosters' slapped down by ad watchdog

24 July 2019 - 08:44 By Dave Chambers
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The ad watchdog says natural remedies are entitled to make claims for their efficacy.
The ad watchdog says natural remedies are entitled to make claims for their efficacy.
Image: 123rf/Sasi Ponchaisang

Natural health products can make unscientific claims about their benefits even if a doctor who has studied at the world’s top universities says they’re nonsense.

Some of the remedies Dr James Seddon complained about.
Some of the remedies Dr James Seddon complained about.
Image: Faithful to Nature

That is the outcome of a complaint to the advertising watchdog by Dr James Seddon about an email promoting remedies such as Pure Herbal Remedies Kiddies Snotty Totty.

Seddon, a paediatric infectious-disease and immunology specialist, was so annoyed by an ad from online retailer Faithful to Nature that he complained to the Advertising Regulatory Board.

The retailer had sent him an e-mail headed “Get your little ones through the sniffle season”, promoting a range of products.

It said: “Keep their developing immune systems in tip-top shape through the changing seasons by supplementing with our ranges of clean, natural health boosters. Actively fights infections and excess mucus.”

Seddon, who has medical degrees from Oxford and Cambridge universities in the UK and studied as a Fulbright Scholar at Harvard University in the US, said the idea of immune-boosting was a fallacy and not medically recognised.

The ad watchdog said in its finding: “He objects to ill-informed consumers being misled and coerced into spending money on products that they believe will protect children from illness, when there is no peer-reviewed scientific evidence to support these claims.”

In its defence, Faithful to Nature quoted several scientific papers that referred to natural immune boosters such as echinacea, garlic and colostrum.

The watchdog said it had no mandate to regulate medicines, and recognised that homeopathic and herbal remedies were not tested in the same way as allopathic medicines, “and therefore many consumers and medical professionals have less faith in their efficacy”.

However, it added: “The overall impression created by the advertiser’s website makes it very clear that the products advertised are not allopathic in nature.

“The term ‘immune-boosting’ is well established in the relevant paradigm. There is nothing confusing about this.”


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