Why the FTC Should Investigate Bayer

Back in January, Bayer paid a $3.2 million fine to the FTC after the feds caught the company making "unsubstantiated claims" about One A Day Weight Smart vitamins. The FTC said Bayer had failed to provide competent or reliable scientific evidence that its vitamins helped people lose weight.

The most interesting part of the settlement said this:

"Bayer is prohibited from violating the FTC order and from making unsubstantiated representations regarding the benefits, performance, efficacy, safety, or side effects of any dietary supplement, multivitamin, or weight-control product."

Lo and behold,  the National Advertising Division yesterday put out a statement indicating that Bayer was again telling untruths about its One A Day brand.

"The National Advertising Division (NAD) of the Council of Better Business Bureaus has recommended that Bayer Healthcare discontinue durational claims and modify the name of its All-Day Energy multivitamin," the NAD said. (All Day is part of the One A Day line, according to the NAD.)

Bayer made these claims about All Day:

“Specially Formulated to Support Energy All-Day Long.”

“Complete multivitamin specially designed to support an Active Mind and Body All-Day Long,”

...among others. The NAD didn't even like the brand's name, which of course suggests that the product lasts all day.

Bayer vowed to appeal and said the company “believes that the decision of the NAD was in error. Specifically, the NAD’s recommendation that Bayer modify the name of its product is inappropriate and is inconsistent with the NAD general rule that, absent extrinsic evidence that consumers have been confused or misled, the NAD will not require an advertiser to change a company product name simply because a challenger speculates that it might be misleading. Bayer requests referral of this decision regarding its product name to a panel of the National Advertising Review Board.”

Bayer has to appeal the decision, because if it accepted the decision then it would be an admission that it had once again made the "unsubstantiated claims" that in January it agreed not to.

In its probe of whether Bayer is flouting its January agreement with the government, the feds might also want to look at Bayer's recent history of advertising missteps.

In March the NAD ruled that Bayer was making unsubstantiated claims about its Ascensia diabetes brands.

And in June Bayer agreed to discontinue ads for its Aleve brand that the NAD also found to be unsubstantiated.

(It begs the question, is there some sort of company-wide advertising ethics problem at Bayer? Time for some refresher seminars from the HR people, I think!)

If you think this is a storm in a teacup, let me draw your attention to this statement in the January statement from the FTC: "The FTC acknowledges the National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus for its referrals of some of these cases."

In other words, if Bayer loses its new One A Day appeal at the NAD, then it lands on top of the FTC's in-box in Washington. And those guys are going to be very interested if it turns out that it took Bayer only seven months to break their agreement.

Comments

[BayerWatcher]

Aleve is marked as deceive customers that Naproxen and Aleve are to be interputed as both being Anti-Inflammatory. While the allowable dosage is not considered to be an anti-inflammatory in Aleve. Call their call center and they will tell yo the same thing.