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You’ve seen the bottles decked with a heart-shaped “O” and the acclaimed “wonderful” tag. To the organization responsible for protecting consumers, those labels are not linking up with the product.
The AP reports that the Federal Trade Commission came out swinging on Monday against several segments of POM Wonderful’s pomegranate-product advertisements. David Vladeck, director of the organization’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, alleged that elements of the juice’s jargon were fallacious, ranging from blood-flow benefits to prostate-cancer protections.
“Any consumer who sees POM Wonderful products as a silver bullet against disease has been misled,” Vladeck told the AP.
POM released a response Monday afternoon to the FTC’s complaint, standing by its line of products that stem from the nutritious pomegranate fruit.
“We do not make claims that our products act as drugs,” said Rob Six, Vice President of Corporate Communications for Roll International, which owns POM Wonderful, in a statement. “What we do, rather, is communicate, through advertising, the promising science relating to pomegranates. Consumers and their health providers have a right to know about this research and its results.”
The company’s website also notes that it has spent more than $34 million to study its products effects on health hindrances, from heart disease to erectile dysfunction.