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In the News
| Splenda Skirmish Escalates Again: Competing Sweeteners Spread the Hate as Advertising Case Heads to Court |
| Issue Date: Daily Dog - December 03, 2007 Splenda Skirmish Escalates Again: Competing Sweeteners Spread the Hate as Advertising Case Heads to Court A hearing in a false-advertising lawsuit against the company that makes the sweetener Splenda is scheduled for Monday in federal court in Los Angeles. Filed by five U.S. sugar companies, the suit claims McNeil Nutritionals has deliberately misled consumers with its "made from sugar, tastes like sugar" advertising campaign. "We believe it is manipulation on an important subject-what you are going to eat for the rest of your life," said Dan Callister, a lawyer for the Sugar Assn. Inc., the LA Times reports. McNeil, which is owned by Johnson & Johnson, says the suit has no merit and should be dismissed because the sugar companies waited too long under the law to take legal action. The only reason the companies sued in 2004-four years after the "tastes like sugar" ad campaign began-was that "Splenda presents a unique threat to the sugar industry," McNeil says in court documents, reports Times writer Alana Semuels. Six months ago, McNeil settled a similar lawsuit filed by Merisant Co. of Chicago, which makes Equal. And a French court ruled recently that Splenda's slogan-which translates as "because it comes from sugar, sucralose tastes like sugar"-violates French consumer protection laws, and it awarded Merisant about $50,000. Splenda is the brand name for sucralose, which uses a chemical process to alter sugar, eliminating most of its calories, by adding chlorine. In court documents, the sugar companies claim this process employs "phosgene gas-a deadly weapon used during World War I." Numerous Food and Drug Administration studies have found sucralose safe for consumption. A spokesman for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which filed a legal brief siding with the sugar industry in the case, said the center had no qualms about Splenda's safety. Splenda replaced Equal as the top-selling sugar substitute in 2003, according to data from market research firm Information Resources Inc. Sales of the 10 top brands of white sugar declined slightly from 2002 to 2006, while sales of Splenda increased more than threefold, the Times reports. The sugar companies claim that McNeil not only intentionally misled consumers about whether Splenda was natural but also continued the advertising campaign knowing that people were confused. The lawsuit says McNeil "unsheathed the double-edged sword of consumer confusion" to boost Splenda sales. A Center for Science in the Public Interest study of 426 people conducted in 2004 found that 47% of Splenda users thought it was a natural product. McNeil says in court filings that reams of consumer research conducted "confirm that consumers well understand that Splenda is not 'truly natural.'" |
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