Posted on 05/12/2009 4:31:37 PM PDT by JoeProBono
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration sent a warning letter to General Mills Inc. last week asking it to change how it promotes the health benefits of Cheerios.
The FDA told General Mills to stop promoting Cheerios, the country’s best-selling cereal, as a product that can lower cholesterol levels, reduce heart disease and reduce the risk of cancer. The agency said that claiming the cereal can lower cholesterol levels by 4 percent in six weeks amounts to marketing it as a drug and violates the federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. A local branch of the FDA gave the Minnesota-based food provider 15 days to explain how it will correct its statements on Cheerios.
In a prepared statement, General Mills (NYSE: GIS) said the complaint doesn’t question whether the cereal actually lowers cholesterol levels and said the dispute is over language, not science.
“The scientific body of evidence supporting the heart health claim was the basis for FDA’s approval of the heart health claim, and the clinical study supporting Cheerios’ cholesterol-lowering benefit is very strong,” the statement said. “We look forward to discussing this with FDA and to reaching a resolution.”
Cheerios boxes say that two, one-and-a-half-cup servings of the cereal every day have been clinically proven to lower cholesterol. The message has been on the box for more than two years.
After the government gets done with Cheerios, the only acceptable marketing slogan will be;
“Cheerios. They’re sort of round.”
Send bozo more money, the problem goes away!
I will increase my use of General Mills products!
FUBO
LOL! I’ve seen THAT before, and have even done it myself when a box fell off a shelf.
What’s interesting is that the FDA thinks anybody is stupid enough to buy Cheerios for “health benefits”.
Cholesterol can be lowered with diet and exercise. I'm an example of that. I didn't eat Cheerios; I ate hot cereal that was an oat and multigrain mixture, but my cholesterol went down over 20 points in 5 months.
General Mills has every right to tout the cholesterol lowering capabilities of it's Cheerios cereals, because they have data proving it. They aren't claiming it's a drug.
The FDA says Cheerios is being marketed a drug? That’s totally ridiculous. The FDA may have evidence that some of General Mills’ claims are exaggerations. I don’t know. But who do they think they are declaring Cheerios a drug?
I’m afraid Barry Obama is our very own amalgam of Robert Mugabe, Jimmy Carter, Rachel Carson, Karl Marx, and Pol Pot: a blend of every kind of nuttiness with absolutely no sense of proportion or respect for any truth higher than “whatever promotes what I want is right.”
Blessings be upon Cheerios, for it be holey food.
Amen.
They have the definition of "drug" in the Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic act, which includes any substance "intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease in man or other animals." Intent, for the purposes of the statute, is determined primarily by looking at the claims made by the manufacturer.
This is really nothing new, and it happens all the time (the only strange thing here is that it got some press coverage) - for decades (perhaps even as far back as 1938, when the FDCA was originally enacted), there have been battles between the FDA and food manufacturers over what sorts of claims food manufacturers can make without manifesting an "intent" to treat/cure/prevent disease. It is not at all uncommon for the FDA to reject particular language, and for the company to negotiate with FDA to reach an amicable solution. That seems to be what's happening here, and, again, the only odd thing is that this has gotten press coverage.
Their claims of lowering cholesterol by eating Cheerios for breakfast is 100% TRUE!
I dropped my cholesterol 22 points when I started eating it every morning for breakfast, it works!
Of course I use to eat four eggs and a quarter pound of bacon every day, so I really don’t know if its the cereal doing it...
Well, all the comedians have been telling us that they don’t make jokes about Obama because there is nothing funny about him and he is so competent etc. If this doesn’t cause some late night jokes, nothing will. But they’ll distance it from Obama if they joke about it. It will be “the FDA” did it, not “the Obama administration.”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.