A treatment for unsubstantiated claims
A couple of months ago, I wrote about a One News story on ‘drinkable sunscreen’.
In New Zealand, it’s very easy to make complaints about ads that violate advertising standards, for example by making unsubstantiated therapeutic claims. Mark Hanna submitted a complaint about the NZ website of the company selling the stuff.
The decision has been released: the complaint was upheld. Mark gives more description on his blog.
In many countries there is no feasible way for individuals to have this sort of impact. In the USA, for example, it’s almost impossible to do anything about misleading or unsubstantiated health claims, to the extent that summoning a celebrity to be humiliated publicly by a Senate panel may be the best option.
It can at least produce great television: John Oliver’s summary of the Dr Oz event is viciously hilarious
Thomas Lumley (@tslumley) is Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Auckland. His research interests include semiparametric models, survey sampling, statistical computing, foundations of statistics, and whatever methodological problems his medical collaborators come up with. He also blogs at Biased and Inefficient See all posts by Thomas Lumley »
“All New The Dr Oz Show” is on daily 1:30-2:30 on tv3. Don’t ask me how I know!
10 years ago
Osmosis Skincare has now “published” the “clinical trial” they promised in their response to my complaint. It’s about as awful as I’d expected it to be. Orac rips it to shreds here: http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2014/08/06/the-makers-of-harmonized-water-a-k-a-drinkable-sunscreen-do-a-clinical-trial-hilarity-ensues/
10 years ago
In summary:
1. Neither randomised nor controlled.
2. One hour of sun exposure led to sunburn in 1/3 of the participants, clearly refuting the claim that it’s equivalent to SPF 30 protection
Plus other relatively minor issues, such as citing a paper that found sunscreen does protect against melanoma (at least in mice) to support a claim that sunscreen doesn’t protect against melanoma.
10 years ago