Lip service legislation

doi:10.1136/bmj.a3145

Published 6 January 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.a3145
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:a3145

Letters

Trading laws and health foods

Lip service legislation

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

More than two months after reporting one case of evidence-freeclaims to Trading Standards (for an obesity remedy) under theUnfair Trading Regulations 2008,¹ we have nothing but a casenumber and repeated requests to resend our complaint as it hasbeen lost several times.

In another case we challenged the claims made for a widely marketedsnoring remedy. The manufacturer refused to provide any evidence,claiming that, although clinical trials had been carried out,the results were commercially sensitive and confidential. TradingStandards agreed that the manufacturer was not obliged to releasethe information, assuring us instead that its officer was satisfiedwith the evidence he had been shown. We, however, received noassurance that he could distinguish a good clinical trial froma bad one. Perhaps pharmaceutical companies should try tellingthe Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency thattheir clinical data are too commercially sensitive to be . . . [Full text of this article]