False Advertising Creates Product Liability Issues

Every company that makes a product wants to market it in the best possible light. However, too many companies cross the line in an effort to capture a wider market of sales for their product. Case-in-point: Nestle, the world’s largest food company, has been hit by the FDA with falsely promoting their “BOOST Kid Essentials Nutritionally Complete Drink” as a medical food with specific claims that it helps for pre/post surgery, fighting off sickness at school, diarrhea, injury or trauma, chronic illness, and more. Here’s a company with a massive marketing budget that resorts to exaggeration and false claims to consumers. In doing this, consumer trust is violated because you expect that a company selling a product is representing factual information about their product. You rely on that information to make an informed purchase decision, but when the information turns out to be false, you feel duped, or worse, you’ve sustained an actual injury based on unreliable or misleading information. A “health” drink is a pretty mild but simple example of this. However, it gets a lot more serious when companies misrepresent facts to your doctor, and your doctor relies on inadequate information to prescribe a drug to you. Case-in-point: Fen-phen. This drug was supposed to be a wonder drug for weight loss. The problem came when Wyeth put profits above people and hid the fact that their own internal studies showed that users of the drug had a huge risk of heart disease if they used the pills more than 90 days. In concealing this fact from the public, they violated public trust, consumer confidence, and the law. They harmed thousands of people and destroyed lives and families who sought the pill for the publicized reasons to take the drug, and wound up with life-threatening heart diseases that dramatically changed their lives and thus deeply affected their families. When whistleblowers came forward and investigations ensued, the internal memos were discovered and Wyeth has paid billions of dollars to consumers for their misleading campaign for profits. It’s a shame we have to deal with “caveat emptor” (let the buyer beware) to the degree we do in our society. Even in the face of potential lawsuits, some companies still feel they have a need to put people second and their own profits first. Companies that display integrity in their decisions should be sought for and frequented with our purchasing power. At Gregory & Swapp, our attorneys have helped thousands of victims recover from product liability injuries. Whether it’s a defective drug or some other misrepresentation of a product’s use, you don’t have to live in pain and suffering without remuneration for others’ lack of integrity and false claims. If you have been injured, don’t delay contacting an attorney to inquire whether or not you may have a claim. It doesn’t hurt to ask and if help is available, why wouldn’t you want to move forward and get some relief that a settlement might help you afford? It might just change your life for the better.