Friday, December 18, 2009

Cheeri

The blog post I chose to read was on product health claims by Josh Pep. The blog post talked about Honey Nut Cheerios and its claim to lower the risk of heart disease. These claims of lowering the risk of heart disease has made the FDA upset. According to the laws of the FDA, food companies are not allowed to make claims like this. The only product that can be advertised as having such claims needs to be a certified FDA drug, not food. The blog post also addresses the claim of Honey Nut Cheerios lowering cholesterol. The FDA also deputes this as false advertising as Cheerios alone will not help you lower your cholesterol.

I agree with Josh on his blog post. Honey Nut Cheerios really is in violation of FDA guidelines. The definition of what is deemed as a drug is any product used intended to be used for a use in prevention, mitigation, and treatment of disease. Cheerios is advertising its self as being able to prevent and reduce the risk of Heart Disease. FDA guidelines state that only FDA approved drugs can advertise them self with such benefits.

While I do have to agree that Cheerios is in violation of FDA's guidelines I disagree with the FDA. I disagree because, is this really that big of a deal? Cheerios really do help lower cholesterol with healthy diet and exercise. What Cheerios does is it becomes a very healthy part of your diet, and when you exercise and eat healthy you will lower your cholesterol. To me it seems like the FDA had nothing better to due then to go after cheerios. I mean Cheerios have been around since 1941 so we know that there safe, and have been advertising heart disease prevention since 1999. So why wait until now to do something about it? All in all I agree that Cheerios is violating the FDA, but in this case its really not that big of a deal.

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