"Weight Watchers International, Inc. (NYSE: WTW) and Groupe DANONE (Paris:BN) announced the signing of a joint venture agreement to establish a weight management business in the People's Republic of China based on the successful Weight Watchers approach to weight loss. The joint venture, 51% owned by Weight Watchers International and 49% owned by Groupe DANONE, combines Weight Watchers International's unrivalled expertise, experience and know-how as the world's leading provider of weight management services with Groupe DANONE's world-class expertise in healthy consumer products and extensive knowledge of the China marketplace and the Chinese consumer."Weight Watchers has a dismal record of success (5 pounds lost in two years) and abysmal record-keeping, for obvious reasons.
Group DANONE, aka Dannon, is arguably another unsavory (no pun intended) player in the weight loss scam industry:
"Dannon heads to courts over 'fraud' probiotic claimsMaybe Weight Watchers and Dannon thought it was only fair to retaliate against the Chinese for their tainted food by sending them this crap.1/24/2008 - The US arm of Danone could be forced to make a multi-million dollar refund to its customers over allegations that it has used fraudulent health claims to sell some of its Activia and DanActive branded yoghurts.
In a class action filed yesterday against the Dannon company in a California court, a legal team have accused the company of spending $100m promoting clinical benefits of products which the company's own testing disproves...
'Deceptive advertising has enabled Dannon to sell hundreds of millions of dollars worth of ordinary yogurt at inflated prices to responsible, health conscious consumers,' he stated.
The class action alleges therefore that claims on advertisements and labelling for Activia pronouncing that the product is 'proven' to improve one's 'intestinal rhythm' and "regulate your digestive system" are all unsubstantiated.
On the back of these claims, the class action accuses Dannon of charging a premium of about 30 per cent on the Activia yoghurt...
Despite these health claims, the civil action accuses Dannon of being aware that numerous scientific studies failed to support their claims on the advertised nutritional benefits.
'A study conducted by leading microbiologists and funded by Dannon determined in 2006 that there was no conclusive evidence' of probiotics providing health benefits,' the action states.
The report entitled Probiotic Microbes: The Scientific Basis was prepared by the American Academy of Microbiology."
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