Alice Tuff and Frank Swain expose ‘science’ in advertising

Detox patches ‘that draw out harmful toxins from your body overnight’, food companies
that ‘shun the obscure chemicals’, stabilised oxygen ‘that has no formula’ – how many times have you seen an advert with claims like these? For us, each was one time too many.

We have been working with a group of PhD and post-doc students who are fed up with
misleading pseudoscientific marketing claims that play on consumers’ fears and undermine
‘good’ science. We decided to challenge the companies putting out these claims by asking
them for the evidence behind them.

The Claims

• Nutridirect herbal mixture ‘can rid you of over 100 types of parasites’

• Ski Activ8 ‘optimises the release of energy from our diet’

• Computer Clear uses your PC to ‘release over 34,000 different homoeopathic type
remedies into you’

• Champneys detox patches draw out harmful toxins from your body overnight

• Pret A Manger ‘shun the obscure chemicals’

• The Co-op removes monosodium glutamate ‘because of consumer concern’

• Sainsbury's remove sodium benzoate from its soft drinks due to customer feedback

• Q-link pendant ‘acts as a master tuning fork …to balance your biofield’

• Aerobic Oxygen: stabilised oxygen ‘that does not have a formula’

• Salt Lamp: heated Himalayan salt improves your health

• Clarins Magnetic Defence Complex protects against artificial electromagnetic fields (EMF)

Our examples seemed to fall into two groups: products which had no plausible science to explain how they work, such as
the Q-link pendant; and secondly, claims about the products avoiding certain ingredients. The popular refrain of ‘chemical free’was a case in point.

No evidence

To our surprise, we discovered that although company representatives were happy to try
to answer our questions, not one was able to give us any evidence to support their claims or put us in touch with anyone who could.

When asked about which parasites
Nutridirect’s product rids you of, they replied, ‘Well have you looked on Wikipedia?’. The makers of Computer Clear admitted their evidence is ‘anecdotal’ but insisted that ‘the scientific bit is always secondary and a bit behind.’ Discussing their famous ‘no
nonsense’ attitude towards food, Pret stated, ‘There really is no scientific basis for our approach’. It was almost always impossible to get more substantial answers despite repeated attempts and pushing to get through to someone who might know the answer. Jennifer Lardge contacted several companies to find out how salt lamps produce their alleged health benefits and was told, ‘I am sure you will find a website that will tell you about it’ or ‘ the evidence is to try one and see for yourself’.

Why bother?

Does it matter if people choose to believe pseudoscientific claims about how products work? Why shouldn’t Clarins sell sprays to protect them from EMF?

Aside from the obvious problems of unfounded worries and the misleading claims to cure, it would be very cynical to accept the
idea that people should be abandoned to ignorance and misinformation. These claims
not only denigrate science and its
achievements, but they place people further away from being able to work out things for
themselves about safety, health and nutrition and what to spend their money on.

The public has a right to know when claims made by commercial producers and retailers are empty and not based on scientific evidence – despite being dressed up in ‘sciencey’ words. If companies wish to substantiate their product with science, they should be expected to demonstrate the same amount of rigour that gives science its strength as a yardstick of truth in the first place. Anything less is simply a pantomime aping the hard work of the world's researchers.

Ongoing project

Ultimately there are no qualifications needed to do this – just an inquisitive mind and the
tenacity to keep asking questions. In our experience, no-one expected to be challenged
for the claims they made, which was probably why in many cases companies had no representatives with sufficient knowledge to answer our queries. Sometimes people do make genuine errors, but if no-one is probing these mistakes, they will go uncorrected.

We published some extracts from the transcripts in a short dossier called There Goes the Science Bit…. The huge reaction has
turned this into an ongoing project with over 200 post-docs and PhD students who are now actively questioning and pursuing
claims from MRSA-protection pyjamas to nanogold moisturisers and wristwatches that boost your biofield.

The list looks a bit daunting. The
companies are turning over hundreds of thousands of pounds and the ads are everywhere from the web to the high street. But if we don’t do it – who will?

For more information please contact

voys@senseaboutscience.org.

‘There Goes the
Science Bit…’ is at
www.senseaboutscience.org.uk/
index.php/site/other/175

Alice Tuff and Frank Swain
are at Sense About Science