FTC Orders Health Food Seller to Correct Ad for Diet Product

Sep. 8–TOKYO — The Fair Trade Commission said Thursday it has ordered health food seller Barrious Laboratories Inc. to correct its exaggerated advertisements in Japan for its popular diet product.

The Japanese antimonopoly watchdog alleged that the advertisements’ message was groundless and violated a law against misleading representation.

Barrious Laboratories said it has discontinued its advertisements and accepted the order.

The diet product, called Bows, has become a great hit, with sales reaching 10.5 billion yen between February 2001 and December 2004.

In its advertisements in newspapers and on its website last year, Barrious Laboratories indicated that surveys had shown that Bows enabled weight loss and that many users were satisfied with the product, the FTC said.

The FTC had asked the company to provide grounds for the indication and found that the firm had no proof and had exaggerated the share of polled respondents who said they were satisfied with Bows.

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