Cancer Claims for Vitamins Elicit Legal Threat

It's about time.

"A healthcare watchdog group has challenged Bayer HealthCare over cancer-prevention claims in advertising and labeling for two multivitamin products.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) says it takes issue with Bayer's suggestion that selenium contained in the multivitamins might reduce the risk of prostate cancer.

In a letter to Gary S. Balkema, president of Bayer's Consumer Care Division, CSPI litigation director Stephen Gardner wrote that Bayer had engaged in 'fraudulent and deceptive practices in the marketing and sale of Bayer's One A Day Men's 50+ Advantage multivitamin and Bayer's One A Day Men's Health Formula multivitamin.'"

Bayer must use the same advertising agency as Oprah and her experts.

"On the CSPI website, Gardner said, 'With these indefensible claims, Bayer is thumbing its nose at the Food and Drug Administration, the FTC, and any number of state consumer protection laws . . . A courtroom would be treacherous territory for Bayer, whose executives would be committing perjury just by reciting their ads under oath.'

In a separate letter to the Federal Trade Commission, CSPI officials urged Mary K. Engle, the agency's associate director of advertising practices, to take action against Bayer.

Among the group's requests are a permanent prohibition on advertisements for the vitamins, a monetary penalty, and a corrective advertising campaign."

Now, if we could only get the FTC and other agencies to look at bad weight loss claims.