5/12/09

FDA to Cheerios - Stop claiming you are a cholesterol drug

Under the do-nothing George Bush FDA, anybody could claim anything and nobody would say a word.

The Cheerios ads and the "Heart Healthy" claims on their boxes are egregious. We think their reasoning is based on a Talmudic compound doubt. First, we doubt that there is any real science that validates the notion that eating Cheerios lowers a person's cholesterol any more than eating cardboard lowers one's cholesterol. Second we doubt that lowering cholesterol actually has a benefit for a person's heart. True on the latter claim there are many studies claiming benefits for the heart of reduced cholesterol. But when you look closely at the results of those medical studies, you realize that they show a modest reduction in risks, not a cure of any disease. Hence these double doubts undermine the cereal's claims.

We are glad the Obama FDA has chosen cheerios first to start making clear that we will not tolerate the antics of 19th century snake oil salesmen in the 21st century.
U.S. objects to General Mills' Cheerios health claims

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - General Mills made unauthorized health claims about the heart-related benefits of its Cheerios Toasted Whole Grain Oat Cereal, U.S. regulators said in a letter released on Tuesday.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it considered language about cholesterol-lowering on Cheerios boxes to be unapproved drug claims. The language did not qualify under the government's approved claims associating fiber from whole grain oats with reduced risk of heart disease, the May 5 letter said.

General Mills officials were not immediately available for comment.

2 comments:

Richard said...

Commenting on the Pope's antisemitic past I understand. Exposing the evils of Bishop Williamson is commendable. Bringing up the issues of Holocaust Denial on Facebook is extremely important. However, railing against the evils against Cheerios seems somewhat out of character.

Not to pry into your personal life, but it sounds as if your wife has gotten on your case about your cholesterol numbers and re-engineered your once engaging saturated fat and sugar laced breakfast for this more healthy fare in the yellow box.

Tzvee Zahavy said...

i do have a thread in the blog about the over dramatization of cholesterol drugs and this is an off-beat follow up to it. actually i suspect that the big pharma put the fda on the cheerios people because they were losing drug sales... yet another conspiracy