COLD- FX CLAIMS CHALLENGED
Natural health product centre of suit
The makers of Canada’s most successful natural- health product are battling a class- action lawsuit alleging they fraudulently misled customers into thinking Cold- FX could quickly relieve cold symptoms — contrary to their own studies.
The B. C. case is unusual among health- product class actions, charging not that the pills caused physical harm but that their benefits were misrepresented.
Previously confidential sales figures for Cold- FX, submitted as part of the case, indicate that more than $ 117 million worth of the ginseng-based product were sold in Canada as recently as 2011.
Developed by an Alberta- based team, and marketed through endorsements by Don Cherry and other sports celebrities, the product has grown to be the bestselling cold and flu remedy in Canada.
But much of those sales were built on false claims that the pills could bring “immediate relief” for cold and flu symptoms, alleges the lawsuit filed in B. C. Supreme Court.
“They told people that the product does something that it doesn’t, and that’s a lie,” said John Green, the Vancouver lawyer spearheading the case. “It’s even more problematic where you have a product that is being sold and you’re basing it on research.”
Don Harrison, the Vancouver Island retiree acting as the suit’s “representative plaintiff,” said he bought a bottle of Cold- FX at a local big- box store in 2011, convinced by the stated promise of fast relief from his respiratory bug.
“I took it according to directions and nothing happened, nothing happened,” Harrison said Monday. “I don’t think there’s any doubt whatsoever that they were pulling the wool over our eyes.”
The drawn- out case is scheduled for another five days of hearings this spring on whether it should be “certified” - the designation allowing a class action to head toward trial or settlement. In the meantime, a judge is also considering a request by the defendants to have the lawsuit tossed out.
A lawyer for Valeant Pharmaceuticals Inc., which bought Cold- FX maker Afexa Life Sciences in 2011, said Monday he did not have authority to comment on the case.
The company no longer seems to make claims about “immediate relief of cold and flu symptoms.” And an affidavit from employee Tara McCrory states that the Cold- FX packages themselves never contained that phrase.
The court document also points to consumer research suggesting most users take Cold- FX when cold and flu symptoms first appear.
The best evidence from an inconsistent series of clinical trials, however, offers no evidence that it would help in those circumstances, says the plaintiffs’ expert witness. The studies indicate at most that Cold- FX might help slightly reduce the number or severity of viruses in users who take the product daily for two to six months, says an affidavit from Adil Virani, a University of British Columbia pharmaceutical sciences professor.
Not only is there no evidence that it provides fast relief if taken when symptoms appear, but none of the human studies were even designed to measure that kind of benefit, said Virani.