The company has responded to the ruling and released the following statement: “Pom Wonderful categorically rejects the FTC’s assertion that our advertisements made any misleading disease treatment or other health claims. Pom has always communicated with our consumers in a transparent, honest and often humorous manner, delivering valuable information about the health benefits of our products.
“This order ignores what $35m of peer-reviewed scientific research, centuries of traditional medicine and plain common sense have taught us: antioxidant-rich pomegranate products are good for you.
“With this ruling, the FTC is taking the unprecedented step of holding food companies like Pom Wonderful to the same standards as pharmaceuticals. Their new legal standard would require food companies to conduct double-blind, placebo-controlled studies in order to talk about potential health benefits of fruits and vegetables.”
The company continued: “To reach this outcome, the agency ignored the findings of their own chief administrative Law Judge in an attempt to bypass Congress and rewrite the rules governing food advertising. By holding health food companies to pharmaceutical research standards and ‘implying’ disease treatment claims that are not being made, the FTC is going to stifle research across the entire food industry.
“Consumers will be denied access to emerging science on the potential health benefits of fruits and vegetables. This would be a giant step backward in the campaign to get Americans to eat healthier. For this reason, we will appeal this order in federal court.
“Our company’s scientific research programme is unmatched in the food and beverage industry. We’ve worked with top researchers, including a Nobel laureate, at 44 leading universities and scientific centres worldwide. These researchers have published health findings about the pomegranate in more than 70 respected, peer-reviewed scientific journals.
“Pom believes in the power of the pomegranate, and we will continue to fight to share scientifically validated research about its health benefits to the public.”
Source: Pom Wonderful
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