Cocoa Krispies Playing on Swine Flu Fears?

By Rigel Celeste on November 9th, 2009

Cocoa Krispies cereal might be taking a legal hit for having the words “immunity boosting” printed on the front of the box, with lawyers claiming there’s no proof that it really does help boost immunity and saying that Kelloggs is just trying to profit off the Swine Flu fears of the public.

Seriously? Am I missing something? The cereal is fortified with antioxidants like vitamin A, C, and E, which are well known good guys, and it doesn’t seem like an outrageous leap to get to a broad and generic statement like ‘immunity boosting’ from there. Basic immunity is hard to measure in any specific way, and one could almost argue that any food helps boost immunity by simply providing calories necessary for life. Grocery store aisles are a maze of half-truths and word games, with companies doing their best to find loopholes and other ways around ‘truth in advertising’ laws in order to sell more products — how is this any different? Is this San Francisco attorney filing claims against everybody?

That’s not to say that it isn’t annoying when a product so blatantly takes advantage of a situation like H1N1 and has such an obvious marketing strategy, but that’s how our advertising system works. In a case like this it seems silly to attack a symptom instead of the sickness.