False Advertising

Some are saying that Gwyneth Paltrow has given out some not-so-sage advice on her website, GOOP. In early 2017, the actress recommended that women place jade eggs inside of their vaginas all day or while they slept to “increase vaginal muscle tone, hormonal balance, and feminine energy in general.” Unsurprisingly, OBGYN’s across the country responded with shock and quickly advised women against the germy practice. Now GOOP, Paltrow’s lifestyle company, is facing legal action over some of the claims it makes about the products it sells online. [1] [2]

Bayer CropScience LP has agreed to pay Massachusetts $75,000 and caved in to the state’s demand that it stop saying that its neonicotinoid pesticides are like “giving a daily vitamin” to plants, when the chemicals have been linked with honeybee colony collapse disorder. [1]
Source: Compound Interest

It took years of begging and pleading, but the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) finally agreed in February to start testing for glyphosate in food. The agency announced just a few days ago that U.S. honey samples tested positive for the chemical, which is an ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide. [1]

Taiwan has recalled Quaker Oats after a random inspection by the country’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) detected glyphosate in amounts exceeding the nation’s legal limits in 10 out of 36 products.
It has been a rough month for Quaker Oats. The company has been under intense public scrutiny since trace amounts of glyphosate, the toxic ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup, was detected in its products. A class action was filed in early May over the discovery by consumers who allege Quaker Oats’ “100% natural” label constitutes false advertising.

PepsiCo, the owner of Quaker Oats, is facing a lawsuit filed on behalf of consumers in New York and California after testing found traces of glyphosate in some oatmeal. The suit is seeking class action status.

No one wants to spend an hour looking for their keys, or worse, develop Alzheimer’s later in life. The prospect of exercising the brain to ensure its health was the concept behind Lumosity, a “brain training” app that uses various games that supposedly puts your gray matter on a treadmill.
But the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said Lumosity’s claims that its games were designed by neuroscientists and were scientifically proven to ward off Alzheimer’s were nothing but rubbish, and Lumos Labs, Lumosity’s maker, can no longer make those claims. [1]

The next time you pour yourself a bowl of Cheerios, keep this in mind: General Mills, the manufacturer of Cheerios, thinks the American public is stupid. According to a new lawsuit brought this week by consumer group Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), General Mills has been pulling one over on consumers when it comes to its nutritional claims about its new Protein Cheerios product.

Kashi will pay $4 million in a false advertising lawsuit put forth in Florida. The lawsuit claimed that Kellogg’s, the parent company for Kashi, advertised an “all natural” (GM-free) product that was, in reality, full of genetically modified ingredients.

The moneyed corporations running the GMO show certainly don’t make it easy. Now that they have won not one, but four different GMO labeling battles, what makes anyone think we can win against Monsanto, Dow, Syngenta, Bayer, Cargill, and the GMA, just to name a few Round-Up-Ready giants? Though a difficult food war to overcome, we do have the power and collective voice to win – but we must all know what we’re up against.
“If you are going through hell, keep going.”
~ Winston Churchill

For the millions who shop for store-brand herbal supplements at mega retailers like Walmart, you’re in for a big surprise. An investigation by the New York State attorney general’s office into store-brand supplements has found that many herbal supplements not not only contain arguably no herbs, but also don’t contain the main ingredient/herb advertised.