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ASA Adjudication on H:MC21

Mojo

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Mojo
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The UK Advertising Standards Authority has released its adjudication on claims made by homoeopathic charity "H:MC21" in an advert run in the New Statesman last October.

ASA Adjudication: Homeopathy: Medicine for the 21st Century.

Complaints upheld on 7 out of 12 points.

The original advert can currently be seen on page 15 of this document.

Edzard Ernst's response, published last November, to the advert is here.

See also the Quackometer Blog: http://www.quackometer.net/blog/2011/10/asa-struggles-with-homeopaths.html
 
Shame they didn't uphold the defamation of Ernst.

Quackometer is a bit down on the length of time taken but considering this is new territory for the ASA it's not surprising. They certainly have an excellent grasp of the meaning of evidence and providing there is no interference with their efforts I'm sure they will speed up the process with experience.
 
Acleron said:
Shame they didn't uphold the defamation of Ernst.
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Well, only on the grounds that it was outside their remit:
"We noted H:MC21 had provided evidence to demonstrate that Professor Edzard Ernst, had “admitted that he has no qualifications in homeopathy". Although we considered that the lack of a homeopathy qualification did not demonstrate that he was not sufficiently qualified to comment on the scientific evidence for homeopathy, we noted Professor Ernst, as a scientific commentator, did not fall under the definition of those parties that the subject to CAP Code rule 3.42 concerning denigration. We therefore concluded that the claims did not breach that Code rule."
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Mojo said:
Well, only on the grounds that it was outside their remit:
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Yes, obviously Ernst wasn't a commercial entity as described in Rule 3.42
3.42
Marketing communications must not discredit or denigrate another product, marketer, trade mark, trade name or other distinguishing mark.
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But what about the very first rule?

Rules
1.1
Marketing communications should be legal, decent, honest and truthful.
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But again, it is a good result.
 
Mojo said:
H:MC21 are disgruntled: http://www.hmc21.org/
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Wonderful

Of especial note is

H:MC21 is profoundly concerned at the lengths the ASA investigation team was prepared to go to in order to try and get the challenges upheld. These included:
*
Refusing to read the evidence
Misrepresenting and censoring the evidence
Changing their arguments and even rewriting a challenge to justify their arguments
Using nonsensical arguments
Using unscientific and inconsistent arguments
Using unscientific or unreferenced evidence
Acting beyond their competence
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I wonder if it is possible to make a complaint to the ASA on the misrepresentation of the actions of the ASA on the H:MC21 site :rolleyes:
 
A revised adjudication has been published: http://www.asa.org.uk/Rulings/Adjud...cine-for-the-21st-Century/SHP_ADJ_139800.aspx

H:MC21 are still not happy and have protested outside the ASA: http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/homeopathy-advocates-have-some-strange-ideas-about-science

And some people seem to have been confused about who was organising the protest: http://jeromeburne.com/2013/06/27/why-hounding-homeopaths-is-both-batty-and-arrogant/

I bring all this up because this week Nightingale was supposed to be protesting outside the Advertising Standards Authority (because they haven’t been diligent in chasing homeopaths for making unsupported claims on web sites) and lobbying Parliament (because “something has to be done”). I don’t know if any of this actually happened – I couldn’t find any news coverage –but I’m writing about them because they are irritating and batty and should be banned (ironic joke).
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Oh, and one on the Society of Homeopaths: http://www.asa.org.uk/Rulings/Adjudications/2013/7/Society-of-Homeopaths/SHP_ADJ_157043.aspx

Following the online remit extension in 2011 the ASA received a large number of complaints about claims relating to homeopathy that appeared on a number of websites. The ASA therefore made the decision to conduct an investigation to determine the acceptability of the type of claims being made for homeopathy. We understood that, as an industry body, the Society of Homeopaths had access to the relevant evidence, and we therefore considered the case was suitable to establish our lead position on claims for homeopathy.

Summary of Council decision:

Three issues were investigated, all of which were Upheld.
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