An advertisement for Johnson and Johnson's product Benecol has been ruled as “misleading” by the UK's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).
Two individuals complained that the statement "two out of three adults have high cholesterol" was erroneous, and the ASA investigated whether the advertisement made false claims. It said: "We considered the ad implied that two-thirds of healthy UK adults currently had cholesterol levels that were generally accepted as 'high', whereas we had not seen evidence that was the case.
"We concluded that the claim 'two out of three adults have high cholesterol' was misleading and that the overall impression of the ad was such that it therefore exaggerated the health benefit of the product."
Johnson & Johnson stated total blood-cholesterol levels of higher than 5 millimoles per litre were considered high or raised, and 2011 World Health Organisation statistics showed the prevalence of raised cholesterol to be 65.6% for males and 65.7% for females.
The company added that many respected medical, health professional and leading commercial organisations in the UK were currently using the same or similar statements in their literature.
Upon hearing the judgement passed by the ASA, Johnson and Johnson only said they were “disappointed.”
© 2014 - European Supermarket Magazine by Peter Donnelly
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