I remember a while back the ASA (I think) insisting that advertisers submitted evidence to them to back up any health claim thats made in an ad. The stuff the got sent as ‘evidence’ was laughable, one firm backed a claim using someone else’s press release for tea bags.
The thing is though…. the real marketing is done through the press and media, not the ads. Marketers don’t make explicit claims about antioxidants for instance. They just claim their product is ‘an excellent source’ of antioxidants and then just flood the media with churn-able press stories with any claim about antioxidants they want to make up, as a news story doesn’t have to have any basis in fact at all.
will they apply the same standards to homeopathic medicines and the claims they make
will they even apply those standards to the vitamins and suppliements industry, vitabiotics have been exposed for making health claims based in studies where the effects they were claiming were demonstrated on people people who were either suffering from genetic eye defects or had full blown aids. The benefits they claim are irrelevant to anyone else. They still market with those claims though.