Centrum Drops Claims Due to Deception

The Pfizer Incorporation has made the decision to drop certain claims that have been listed on the Centrum multivitamin that the incorporation distributes. The multivitamin label made claims that the vitamins were good for colon health and breast health, without any research to actually back these statements up. One consumer watchdog group made allegations against Pfizer, stating that using words like breast health and colon health was misleading to those who buy the multivitamins and made claims that the company was being deceptive. Pfizer seems to disagree with the watchdog group but has agreed to remove these particular claims from its labels within the next few months.

There have been a number of watchdog groups taking action within the past few years because they want the claims on supplements to be accurate and realistic, not made up or deceptive. These watchdog groups often feel that the United States Food and Drug Administration is not working hard enough to crack down on some of these companies that are providing deceptive information to their customers. Even the Government Accountability Office has pointed out that the FDA is going to need to have more power if they are going to be able to regulate these different supplements.

The watchdog group had sent a long letter to the Chief Executive of Pfizer, Ian Read, several months ago, at some point during the month of April. In the letter, they stated that the Centrum multivitamin supplement label made deceptive claims, stating that they help promote colon health and breast health. The group said that if Pfizer continued to release these products with labels promoting these particular statements without any research behind them, they would sue Pfizer. After receiving the letter, Pfizer has chosen to remove the breast health and colon health claims and will also be making adjustments to the language that is used on other health benefits available in the supplements. The company does not agree that they have been deceptive but they would rather resolve the issue without dealing with a lengthy lawsuit.

The watchdog group, on the other hand, believes Pfizer only makes claims about breast and colon health because Vitamin D is available in the supplements, even though there is no conclusive evidence that proves Vitamin D helps to protect people from getting breast cancer or colon cancer at all. Both Pfizer and the watchdog group will not get all of what they want because Pfizer has to take off certain words from the Centrum product but will continue to display other health-related words, some of which the watchdog groups are not happy about.