Some People Just Dont Give Up! .. lawsuits over Splenda marketing

[Unholy]

J&J faces lawsuits over Splenda marketing campaign


By Sophie Walker


WASHINGTON, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Johnson & Johnson is facing a raft of lawsuits over a marketing campaign related to its artificial sweetener Splenda, which accuse the company of misleading buyers to believe Splenda is a natural product.

Splenda, which has enjoyed rapid sales growth on the back of a boom in low-carbohydrate eating in the last couple of years, is marketed by J&J's McNeil Nutritionals Worldwide division with the line: "Splenda No Calorie Sweetener is made from sugar, so it tastes like sugar."

But the Sugar Association says the marketing pitch does not accurately reflect the end product and is misleading because it gives the impression that Splenda contains natural sugar.

McNeil faces three class-action suits from individuals, one from the Sugar Association and one from Merisant Worldwide Inc, the maker of rival low-calorie sweetener products including Equal and Canderel.



"Johnson & Johnson is misinforming consumers about the reality of the chlorinated product Splenda," said James Murphy, counsel for the Sugar Association, whose lawsuit seeks unspecified damages, a nationwide injunction and corrective advertising.


"We feel the public needs to be aware that Splenda is an artificial chemical sweetener. Splenda is created with chlorine, and the final product does not have sugar in it," he said.


Splenda's Web Site (www.splenda.com) says the product is made "through a patented process that starts with sugar and converts it to a no calorie, noncarbohydrate sweetener. The process selectively replaces three hydrogen-oxygen groups on the sugar molecule with three chlorine atoms."


A spokeswoman for McNeil Nutritional told Reuters that the lawsuits had no merit.


"Consumers are utilizing no-calorie sweeteners versus other sweeteners like sugar, and you would have to draw your own conclusions about why now these efforts are being launched." said Monica Neufang, director of communications for McNeil,


"We have never represented Splenda as being natural," she said.


MARKET SHARE


Splenda has just over 50 percent of the U.S. market for low calorie sweeteners, based on dollar volume, according to data collected by IRI and made available to Reuters by McNeil.


It is used in products which include Kool-Aid Jammers 10 tropical Punch drink, produced by Kraft Foods .


"Obviously, any organization that represents the sugar growers of the world would like to have people know what they are buying when they are buying a sweetener," said Dan Collister, attorney at Squire, Sanders and Dempsey, acting for the Sugar Association.


Separately, the Texas Consumer Association said on Monday it had asked the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to investigate the Splenda marketing campaign.


"With consumers across the country concerned about their health and trying to eat more natural foods, it is alarming that McNeil is engaged in an underhanded campaign to confuse consumers into believing Splenda is natural," commented Sandra Haverlah, president of the Texas Consumer Association.


Haverlah said she was working with the Consumer Federation Network and was not associated with the groups bringing suits against Splenda.


No one from Merisant was available for comment.

[tom sawyer]

I guess I never really thought it was misleading to say they make Splenda from sugar. As a chemist, I understand that when you modify a natural compound, it is no longer natural. I suppose that some poeple might not realize this. If I worked t Splenda, I'd withdraw the campaign and just let the product sell itself. The taste and utility of the stuff is second to none. I understand they can't make enough to meet demand as it is.

[Kristine]

I don't find it misleading, either. I think the sugar pushers are really grasping at straws with this one.

[gotbeer]

Oh NO! Not CHLORINE, the stuff they put in salt! Noooooo...

[Groggy60]

Well Splenda does not give me a headache and the other fake sweeters do, and others have said the same. There is definitely something better about it.

[AlaskaRoy]

And all the corn syrup products are just as artifically manufactured from corn starch, are they not? It seems to me that Splenda is just as "natural" a fabricated synth-food as the corn syrup-laden items that are the mainstay of the standard American diet.

[Nancy LC]

And how natural is sugar? It has to be extracted from beets or sugar cane. It doesn't exactly grow in the form we use it in.

[LukeA]

And how natural is sugar? It has to be extracted from beets or sugar cane. It doesn't exactly grow in the form we use it in.


Exactly...even just the difference between raw sugar and white granulated is a big leap in the wrong direction. :nono:

I dont care what the heck naysayers say about sucralose.....I know it is safe, and without it I would be pissed. ;)

[statjunk]

This is news to me!

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=583&ncid=583&e=12&u=/nm/20050201/od_nm/food_splenda_dc

Tom

[DiannaH]

Wow, that is interesting. I wonder what the effect of chlorine in Splenda is...

[Si Belle]

That is very interesting. Something to keep track of.
Thank you for sharing.

Renee

[cc48510]

Oh NO! Not CHLORINE, the stuff they put in salt! Noooooo...

That is the point of the lawsuits...to scare the general public away from SPLENDA and back to Sugar by using a lawsuit to force McNeil to advertise that it is made with Chlorine. Consumers will of course associate Chlorine with Chlorox or Chlorine Gas, rather than Table Salt. By my estimates there is at least 100x more Chlorine in some Sausage patties from the salt than there is in a packet of SPLENDA. But, this doesn't stop the fearmongering.

I'm arguing with another person over on another board who keeps trying to claim SPLENDA causes Diabetes, Kidney Failure, etc...because it contain super toxic Chlorine, and the fillers (Maltodextrin and Dextrose) not to bulk it up, but to cover up the Chlorine taste. I pointed out that EVERY Graunlar and Packet artificial sweetener uses those same two fillers, not just SPLENDA. He claims to have eaten "raw" Sucralose (i.e. Pure Sucralose with no fillers) and says it had a Chlorine taste. I pointed out that was the equivelant of claiming sugar doesn't taste good, because you drank the Corn Syrup right from the bottle and didn't like the taste. Of course, he still isn't getting it and is sticking to his claims that the Chlorine will cause all these problem.

[grandpa]

Hydrogen is extremely flammable in the presence of oxygen. Some food and drink manufacturers are combining not just one hydrogen atom, but TWO of them to each Oxygen atom to produce……… water! Where can I sign onto the class action for this one?

[cc48510]

Hydrogen is extremely flammable in the presence of oxygen. Some food and drink manufacturers are combining not just one hydrogen atom, but TWO of them to each Oxygen atom to produce……… water! Where can I sign onto the class action for this one?

http://www.dhmo.org/images/dhmobanner.gif (http://www.dhmo.org/)

Just click on the banner...or

http://www.circus.com/~nodhmo/
http://www.snopes.com/toxins/dhmo.htm

[BadgerGirl]

Sour grapes. Equal wants to be another Microsoft. :rolleyes:

Of course this means the cost of Splenda will probably increase.

[mizz]

so its still safe for us right? *confused*

[LukeA]

so its still safe for us right? *confused*

\
Absolutely. There is not a trace of sound evidence showing it isnt. ;)

[BbyGrl]

For me I could care less if was natural or not. When I eat or drink anything with Saccharine, aspartame and even too much Asulfame Potassium it breaks me out into horrid hives, my throat swells and my ENTIRE body itches for a week or two. This does not happen with Splenda and it is helping me lose weight so 3 cheers to them! And it does taste more like sugar than that other crap they have out. I just wish it was cheaper, LOL.

[Lendek]

I have nothing ageinst Splenda except that it has 1 carb per teaspoon. Thats why I use Xyitol or Malitol...

[LukeA]

I have nothing ageinst Splenda except that it has 1 carb per teaspoon. Thats why I use Xyitol or Malitol...


xylitol, and maltitol are at least 50% utilized by the body, equalling a hell of a lot more carbs than granular splenda. ;) You can get liquid sucralose that is 0 carbs. (BTW, granular splenda is in fact only .5 grams per teaspoon. Packets of splenda which equal the sweetening power of two teaspoons of sugar, are 1 gram each.).

[Harpoo]

I do not think the lawsuit is about it being safe, I think it is about it misleading people to think it is just sugar minus calories. Which it isn't. I think that is the point.

[Lendek]

Xylitol dosnt have carbs unless it is not pure...

[LukeA]

Xylitol dosnt have carbs unless it is not pure...

No, sorry you are misinformed i'm afraid. Xylitol itself is a carbohydrate.
The case for using it in a low carb diet is that there is research showing that it is more slowly metabolized than sugar, therefore lowering insulin response. Depending on the person, 25% to 100% of it is then utilized by the person consuming it. The ease in which a person digests and makes use of xylitol varies on their digestive system.

BTW, Xylitol has nearly as many calories as sugar as well.

[Harpoo]

What exactly is Xylatol? Is it an artificial sweetener like sucralose? I just read another article about the lawsuits today. It was more of an editorial though, and the author sounded like a low carber....

[cc48510]

What exactly is Xylatol? Is it an artificial sweetener like sucralose? I just read another article about the lawsuits today. It was more of an editorial though, and the author sounded like a low carber....

Xylitol is a Sugar Alcohol. It is partially absorbed and very low glycemic. I think about 7 if I remember correctly. While it doesn't spike Blood Sugar, it gives some people Gas/Diareah, and some folks believe you should count all absorbable carbs, not just those that have more than a mild effect on Blood Sugar. Its really a YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary) type of thing. Sugar Alcohols are relatively natural, in that they occur naturally. But, some are made Artificially by Hydrogenating Sugars (not to be confused with Hydrogenated Fats/Oils, which are extremelly deleterious to your health), because the amounts [of Sugar Alcohols] that occur naturally in nature are very small.

[tortoise]

Splenda Fights Back

http://www.foodproductiondaily.com/news/news-NG.asp?n=57997-splenda-fights-back

10/02/2005 - Tate & Lyle’s Splenda brand in the news again this week as McNeil Nutritionals, the table-top supplier of this increasingly popular sweetener, takes the US sugar industry to court.

The US firm is accusing the sugar association, its members, and PR firm Qorvis Communications behind the industry group, of ‘making false and misleading claims about the Splenda brand.’

The moves follow swiftly on from a lawsuit filed by the sugar association against McNeil Nutritionals at the end of last year. The sugar group accused McNeil of “deceptive and/or misleading representations”, made by the sweetener firm in “advertisements and marketing terminology” to consumers.

Fighting back, the marketer of the no calorie sweetener said this week: “The Sugar association and other defendants have knowingly and intentionally made false claims about the Splenda Brand that are baseless and that are designed to injure its reputation and goodwill.”

McNeil Nutritionals, a unit of Johnson & Johnson, asserts that sucralose starts off as pure cane sugar, and is then chemically altered in the manufacturing process to create a new compound with zero calories, and 600 times sweeter than sugar.

Sucralose was developed jointly by McNeil Nutritionals and sugar giant Tate & Lyle. The British firm became the sole manufacturer of Splenda earlier this year after reaching an agreement with McNeil Nutritionals, that markets the table-top sweetener.

The false-advertising lawsuit filed by the sugar association against McNeil in California in December, does not target Tate & Lyle.

“From our perspective, whatever the outcome of the litigation, sucralose will still be made from sugar, and still taste like sugar,” a spokesperson at Tate and Lyle told FoodNavigator.com in December.

In November Merisant, the US maker of tabletop sweetener Equal and NutraSweet and a competitor to Splenda, alleged in a separate lawsuit that the product’s marketing slogan, “made from sugar, so it tastes like sugar,” had mislead consumers into thinking the artificial sweetener was “natural.”

Sales for Splenda, are currently soaring and the battle of lawsuits may not be palpable in terms of sales loss.

According to Datamonitor, the Splenda ingredient was used in some 1,436 new products worldwide in 2004, up from 573 in 2003 and 35 in 1999.

Indeed, this week the number one global soft drinks supplier Coca-Cola announced the launch of a new diet coke in its range, sweetened with Splenda and complete with the ingredient brand logo on the packaging.

The move suggests increasing consumer brand awareness for Splenda, as it perches on the supermarket shelf alongside Coca-Cola’s flagship diet coke, sweetened with NutraSweet.

[VickySail]

Bring it on! I own stock in J&J, and you can't pay for this kind of exposure.

[Pogojo]

Well if Tate & Lyle aren't part of the lawsuit why are the quotes from them and not Merisant?

[Pogojo]

Heh.... I realized that I mixed up my M's....I meant McNeil in that last post. Anyways, I was checking up on this and found another article released by the Center for Science in the Public Interest:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/15/politics/15splenda.html

This is one of my trusty go to sources for independant news so I found this really interesting..

[gigantical]

http://www.dhmo.org/images/dhmobanner.gif (http://www.dhmo.org/)

That has got to be the best web site I've seen all week. A laugh a minute. Problem is: half the people looking at it, just won't get it. The good news is that the other half will be laughing at them. I should circulate it around the office and wait until the first person starts talking about banning it.

:lol:

[VickySail]

You know, anyone without a science degree or enough knowledge to actually research the words are not going to know what it is.

Check out the last paragraphs about California legislation. Priceless. Snopes Link (http://www.snopes.com/toxins/dhmo.htm)

[Pogojo]

Nice find Vicky.

Has anyone ever found any articles or reports on Splenda studies. I would like to learn from the horses mouth about this stuff a little more. I have been looking around but it isn't so easy to find them. Any help would be much appreciated! Thanx in advance.