2 NZ highschool girls screw the world's second largest pharma company

[Torsten]

Interesting that nothing got done by authorities till a TV program got involved.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story....jectid=10430610

Schoolgirls' study nabs food giant

Saturday March 24, 2007

By David Eames

A high school science experiment by two 14-year-old girls has embarrassed the world's second-largest food and pharmaceutical company.

GlaxoSmithKline will appear in Auckland District Court on Tuesday to face charges alleging 15 breaches of the Fair Trading Act.

The charges, brought by the Commerce Commission, arose from an investigation by Pakuranga College students Anna Devathasan and Jenny Suo into the vitamin C levels of the popular Ribena drink, which has sales of about $8 million a year.

The company faces a maximum fine of $200,000 on each charge.

GSK has a worldwide turnover of more than $61 billion, second only to drug giant Pfizer.

The students - now 17 - decided in mid-2004 to test the vitamin C levels of their favourite juices, including Ribena, Just Juice and Arano, for a school project.

They calculated that each 100ml of Ribena contained about 22mg of vitamin C.

Just Juice products contained levels of about 72mg.

The figure for Ribena seemed too low, particularly as the company had promoted the product by claiming that blackcurrants had four times the vitamin C of oranges.

"We thought we were doing it wrong, we thought we must have made a mistake," Anna said.

The girls got short shrift when they took their observations to GlaxoSmithKline.

In a letter, the girls described its advertising as "intentionally misleading and quite inappropriate".

When they got no response, they telephoned the company.

"They didn't even really answer our questions. They just said it's the blackcurrants that have it, then they hung up," Jenny said.

Undeterred, the girls contacted the Advertising Standards Authority, and Brandpower, but still got no satisfaction.

But then the television consumer affairs show Fair Go picked up the story and suggested the girls take their findings to the Commerce Commission.

The pair put the matter out of their minds, until the prosecution made the news about a month ago.

"It's completely unbelievable," Jenny told the Weekend Herald yesterday.

"It's pretty crazy when you realise how much power you can have, as a kid as well."

The girls have since visited the company to be thanked "for bringing it to our attention".

GSK's TV advertisements claimed "the blackcurrants in Ribena have four times the vitamin C of oranges". The commission said that although blackcurrants had more vitamin C than oranges, the same was not true of Ribena.

It also alleged its testing found ready-to-drink Ribena contained no detectable level of vitamin C.

The girls' discoveries have also scored a hit in Australia.

GSK Australia this week dobbed itself into the Australian equivalent of the Commerce Commission, admitting it had been misleading in its Ribena claims.

[occidentalis]

GSK's TV advertisements claimed "the blackcurrants in Ribena have four times the vitamin C of oranges". The commission said that although blackcurrants had more vitamin C than oranges, the same was not true of Ribena.

Why is this misleading? What proportion of ribena is pure blackcurrent juice? 5%?

It's tricky marketing but if you can't see past that then don't go to the shops.

[XipeTotec]

shows the difference in the public and private education systems... the best anyone managed in science class at my school was igniting the bunson burner taps.

[foolsbreath]

shows the difference in the public and private education systems... the best anyone managed in science class at my school was igniting the bunson burner taps.

Did you go to a private school? Pakuranga college is a public school in Auckland

Maybe NZ education is better? I remember for my 3rd form or 4th form (year 8/9? first/second year of high school) biology project analysing the effect of alpha amylase on degradation of food cooked to different degrees vs uncooked and fermented/pickled products, pretty standard sort of project at my school, also public.

[XipeTotec]

Did you go to a private school? Pakuranga college is a public school in Auckland

Maybe NZ education is better? I remember for my 3rd form or 4th form (year 8/9? first/second year of high school) biology project analysing the effect of alpha amylase on degradation of food cooked to different degrees vs uncooked and fermented/pickled products, pretty standard sort of project at my school, also public.

i guess i just assumed it was private... cause they said there exam results were near the top the schools.... here, that doesnt really happen.

[foolsbreath]

i guess i just assumed it was private... cause they said there exam results were near the top the schools.... here, that doesnt really happen.

I think new zealand public schools receive a fair bit of funding by offering places at a cost to overseas students, obviously cheaper than private education, but more expensive than, well, free education.

On a whole these students try harder than the average Joe new zealander.

New Zealand is also very multi-racial, Auckland in particular. I believe different races hold their education at different levels of esteem, and there is a definite correlation between results achieved in school and the background/race of a student

Having said that, there was very little difference in results at the time I was in school between public and private

I think we had the brainiest boy in NZ at our school. In seventh form (year 12) he recieved 100% in all exams except for one (99% in that one) for bursary. To put this into context an average of 60% across five exams in bursary will get you a place in any medical college in Australasia, I think you need a fair bit higher than that in the Australian equivelant final year exams to get into Medicine.

I got an average of 55% in my bursary exams which was the equivelant of 87% average here.

[Torsten]

Why is this misleading? What proportion of ribena is pure blackcurrent juice? 5%?

It's tricky marketing but if you can't see past that then don't go to the shops.

The point is that after processing there is no VitC left. The percentage of the mix does not matter.

If they made the statement

"blackcurrants have four times the vitamin C of oranges"

then that would be truthful, but saying

"the blackcurrants in Ribena have four times the vitamin C of oranges"

makes a claim for their particular product that is not true.

[strangebrew]

I had a look at the Ribena today. Interestingly on the ready to drink stuff they don't even bother to mention vitamin C. From memory the concentrate was said to contain 34mg per 100ml of vit.C and contain 20% blackcurrant juice compared to Bickfords blackcurrant concentrate which has a whopping 50% blackcurrant juice and is cheaper too. So fuck you big pharma and your stingy ways.

[teonanacatl]

We did an analysis of something as part of grade 11 chemistry, we chose peanut butter. I am actually surprised that they announced their results and questioned the big pharma company from just their own testing. We were discussing it today in analytical chem. I believe they analysed it via iodometric titration, there is a possibility of interference and I wonder how they validated their procedure. Would be interesting to see if they did validate their procedure and test for interferences, easy enough todo, or if they just got lucky and had no interferences.

[MORG]

Surely things were validated by someone before going to trial. They're a pharma company, they would have at least validated themselves.

I shouldn't be surprised but I was a bit dismayed to learn GSK made Ribena. Just one more brick in the wall of corporate globalisation.

Hazzah for science! A small example but an excellent demonstration of its power.

[Torsten]

I literally live on bickfords black currant cordial. I hope it doesn't turn out to be owner by Pfizer or something.

always thought Ribena was too sweet. gives me headspins.

[Ace]

always thought Ribena was too sweet. gives me headspins.

Ohh T, now your showing your age