Family Favorite Cheerios under Attack: FDA, Go after “Truth in Advertising” of Global Warming Instead
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on May 13, 2009
By Vicki McClure Davidson * Frugal Café Blog Zone
FDA: Cheerios' advertising makes it a drug
Cheerios were my kids’ first finger food. High in vitamins and low in sugar, satisfying flavor, cheaper than most other boxed cereals, and too small to choke a teething toddler, I had mini-containers with lids filled with Cheerios at the ready whenever we went on a car trip. The kids loved them, I loved them. What’s not to love?
It was about the only snack food I permitted them to have for years.
Now, the FDA asserts that (translation: heavy-handed attacks) Cheerios is marketing itself as a drug. What? Are you friggin’ kidding me?
Is it really? OK, I don’t know anything about the in’s and out’s of precise legal language and how it’s used in the marketing of drugs to offer any kind of authoritative opinion. But trust in that if I ever thought Cheerios was “a drug,” you can be darn-tootin’ sure I would have never fed it to my children. What kind of pathetic excuse of a mother would I have been if I had gotten my small children HIGH on cereal?
Talk about Obama administration overkill on this. The FDA is having a royal hissy fit over marketing language that General Mills has used for Cheerios cereal for over two years now. A little slow on the uptake, FDA… whoa, boy, really glad you’re on the ball protecting us from the depraved evils of Cheerio’s “druggy” advertising. It’s a ridiculous thing for the FDA to go “all Rambo” over marketing language that’s been used for two years.
Maybe the FDA “Cereal Cops” could expand their outrage to the “truth in advertising” problems I have with the myth of global warming / climate change.
These “global warming cops” could target and attack the faulty, fraudulent marketing language used to suggest that global warming is really true… fallacious data and distorted language used freely by Al Gore and other eco-nuts. The bogus, gigantic “it’s all humans’ fault” lie about us destroying the earth’s climate and Mother Earth herself bothers me a whole heck of a lot more than Cheerios. I know this government agency has nothing to do with food and drugs, but in this Age of Obama, government agencies are being added or changed all the time. The letter “B” could be added after the “D,” making it the Food, Drug, and BUNK Administration.
FDA, this would be a much better use of taxpayers’ dollars than crazily attacking a beloved whole-grain cereal. Good PR with Americans and you’d make more than 30,000 scientists across the globe applaud your courage.
Otherwise, you’re just posturing “Cereal Thugs.” What’s next on the FDA bully hit list… Flintstone’s vitamins?
Think about it. FDBA… it has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?
For decades, a sunny yellow box of Cheerios has dominated breakfast tables across the nation. But this morning, the Food and Drug Administration warned the maker of the country’s top-selling cereal to clean up its advertising.
The FDA wants the cereal maker to adjust its advertising claims.
The FDA said ads promoting Cheerios as a drug that can “lower your cholesterol 4 percent in six weeks” violates the federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act.
The federal agency claims the language on the Cheerios box suggests the cereal is designed to prevent or treat heart disease. Regulators say that only FDA-approved drugs are allowed to make such claims. The FDA warns that if General Mills doesn’t “correct the violations,” it risks having its cheery-looking boxes seized by federal agents right off store shelves.
In a letter to the chairman of General Mills, the FDA warned that the company’s marketing tactics “cause [Cheerios] to be a drug because the product is intended for use in the prevention, mitigation and treatment of disease.”
“Because of these intended uses, the product is a drug …” the FDA states. “Therefore … it may not be legally marketed with the above claims in the United States without an approved new drug application.”
General Mills contended that the fuss is over a disagreement in semantics, not science, and that the health claims on Cheerios have been there for more than two years.
“The scientific body of evidence supporting the heart health claim was the basis for FDA’s approval of the heart healthy claim, and the clinical study supporting Cheerios’ cholesterol-lowering benefits is very strong,” General Mills spokesman Tom Forsythe said in a statement. “The FDA is interested in how the Cheerios’ cholesterol-lowering information is presented on the Cheerios package and Web site.”
Regardless of how it is advertised, nutritional experts told “Good Morning America” that whole-grain cereals like Cheerios are crucial to a healthy diet.
“Whole grains help combat high cholesterol because they’re high in fiber,” Health Magazine contributor Samantha Heller said. “They have vitamins, minerals, proteins, antioxidants. They’re really the whole package.”
The Cheerios’ Web site, which offers a section dedicated to “heart healthy eating,” includes a certification by the American Heart Association for products that “meet American Heart Association food criteria for saturated fat and cholesterol for healthy people over age 2.”
Related reading:
Michelle Malkin: First, they came for the Cheerios and Stop Al Gore and the eco-taxers
Hot Air: Video: FDA declares Cheerios a drug?
Scared Monkeys: Obama Administration Now Takes on Cheerios … War on Cheerios
Insert clever s.logan here: Cheerios As Drugs and Sugar-Coated Serial Killers
The Washington Post: The FDA, Making the World Safe — From Cheerios
Cold Fury: Cereal Czar?
The Great Illumonator: Cheerios “Drug” Added to FDA’s High Priorities
Fausta’s Blog: Cheerios, the new drug
About the author
They are power junkies, and like any other drug, it will eventually kill you.
2010…we vote again.
Hi
Are you sure that cheerios are low in sugar?
here in the Uk they certainly are not. In fact most cereals advertise themselves as low in fat and full of natural goodness but when you check the label, sugar is high in relation to their recommend bowl size.
However everything in moderation is oK
As for advertising, I can’t really comment as here in the Uk advertising is rather conservative after a few years ago when the govt introduced new rules about advertising to kids. But I must say they never used the term drug.
I guess we live in a world were extreme is the norm.
Kate,
Compared to other snack foods and other cereals in the US, the plain original Cheerios is indeed low in sugar. Sugar free? No, it’s not. But I’m OK with that for my kids. As you said, moderation in all things.
The FDA is a joke. The law says that “only a drug can cure disease,” which is a complete lie. They don’t want you to think that a healthy diet can prevent any kind of disease, because the drug companies, who ‘own’ the FDA, can’t make a profit on healthy people. It’s in their best interest for peopl to get sick.
Automobile manufacturers use standard safety tests conducted by others before they make claims that they are safer than any other car or avoid accidents. Same principle here. If you’re going to say that eating “x” servings per day of any product will reduce cholesterol, reduce the risk of a heart attack, or improve any other outcome you better have some objective evidence to back it up. Truth in advertising is the issue here. In the world of making health claims you need to have data just as you do when assessing safety of cars and that is a well accepted standard accepted by the majority of health care providers and scientists. To my knowledge, there are no data to say that Cheerios, by itself, can reduce cholesterol or the risk of a heart attack, or any other related outcome. The language the FDA used to warn General Mills was not the clearest and obviously the message was lost if you think they are trying to say that they are equating Cheerios to a prescription drug. But come on, listen to what’s being said rather than ranting on about one party’s or federal agency’s incompetence. Perhaps before you so freely and harshly criticize something like this you should do your homework or ask experts who do know something about this area.
FYI
From General Mills web site:
Resource for health professionals: http://www.bellinstitute.com/bihn/about_us/index.aspx?cat_1=28
The mission of the Bell Institute of Health and Nutrition and its staff of doctorate-and master-level scientists and registered dietitians is to help in the development of food products and nutrition information.
With backgrounds in nutrition science, public health, clinical nutrition and food science, Bell Institute experts are a valuable resource for the business teams at General Mills, as well as for health professionals around the country.
Scientists in the Bell Institute contribute to research on whole grains, micronutrients and breakfast, and publish research and scientific articles in leading peer-reviewed journals.
In addition, the Bell Institute also supports health professional organizations, sponsors educational efforts, and develops patient education materials and continuing education programs for health professionals.
Give me a break!