Re: Boiron amenaza con demandar a un blogger italiano.

Como mencionaba en un par de posts más arriba, le iban a hacer juicio a Boiron en Canadá. Hoy reportan que inician $30 million class action lawsuit. Vale la pena leer la nota entera, es cortita, pero aquí va un detalle del texto:

The suit has been filed by leading class-action law firm Roy, Elliott, O’Connor (REO), in partnership with Centre for Inquiry Canada. It follows an open letter sent by CFI’s Committee for the Advancement of Scientific Skepticism (CASS) to Shoppers Drug Mart, demanding that it cease selling worthless homeopathic products such as Oscillococcinum, Boiron Inc.’s popular homeopathic flu remedy. In the new lawsuit against both Shoppers and Boiron, REO alleges that the two companies have, through their marketing of Oscillococcinum, committed no fewer than twelve separate violations of consumer protection acts.

The heart of the case is the claim that Oscillococcinum (“Oscillo”) does not in fact contain the active ingredient Boiron lists on its packaging. The packaging for Oscillo lists the active ingredient as “Anas Barbariae Hepatis et Cordis extractum 200C”. Put into plain English, this describes a dilution of an initial extract of the heart and liver of the Barbary (or Muscovy) duck. Set aside for the moment the fact that there is no evidence whatsoever that Barbary duck organs have any effect on influenza, and focus on the dilution. Even by homeopathic standards, the level of dilution in Oscillo is extreme: “200C” indicates a serial dilution of one part in 100, repeated 200 times. That is, the final product represents a theoretical dilution level of one part in 10400. Given that the entire observable universe only contains an estimated 1080 atoms, it is clear that almost all of these dilutions involve simply diluting water with water – there is no trace of duck heart or liver left after the first dozen or so dilutions. So the claimed active ingredient in Oscillo is neither “active” nor an “ingredient”. Rather, since each 1g pill contains 0.85g sucrose and 0.15g lactose, Oscillo is in fact 100% sugar. By misrepresenting their sugar pills as containing an active ingredient, Boiron violates numerous consumer protection laws.

Hay que destacar la acción de protección hacia los consumidores, y el hecho de que hay lugares donde no se pueden vender mentiras impunemente. Ojalá que otros países sigan el ejemplo.

E