It is no secret that television infomercials are heavy on bogus, money-back guarantees and light on truth and accuracy.A new study from Brigham Young University says that health-related infomercials are particularly suspect.'Results from this study suggest that most health-related infomercials have crossed the line and operate in the domain of deception,' writes Susan Hill, a university assistant professor of medicine and lead author of the report.
Even more shocking, Hills explains in her study, is that 'a large number of the FTC (the Federal Trade Commission) consumer-fraud cases involve health and fitness products, and infomercial trade associations report that the number-one selling category of infomercial products are health and fitness items.'
In other words, as bad as these TV spots are, they are not going away, the study concludes. FTC officials also told Hill their truth-in-advertising enforcement programs are not stringent enough to squash these bogus claims.
Hill's findings, based on analysis by Gordon Lindsay, Steve Thomsen and Astrid Olsen, all with the university's Department of Health Science, are reported in the latest issue of the American Journal of Health Education.
The Washington-based nonprofit American Association for Health Education, which publishes the journal, says it is too early for infomercial retailers to respond to the analysis.
In the study, four trained observers watched 31 half-hour, health-related infomercials. The spots were aired on six major networks. They included pitches for exercise equipment, drug and herbal supplements, food-preparation gear and personal hygiene products. Among the 'implied benefits' outlined in the spots: increased memory, cancer-fighting properties, increased muscle bulk and improved sexual performance.
Few of these benefit claims could be proven with any scientific or medical backup data, according to the study. Fourteen of the infomercials used what Hill and her co-authors called 'pseudoscientific' terms and 27 promised immediate results, but without any clinical-trial data. There was no comparison of claims made in nonhealth infomercials.
-- Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.
