Ad description
An email from Eventbrite for The Shambhallah Healing Center, sent on 20 September 2017, titled “FW: Join us & Reverse Your Diabetes or Hypertension in 30 days”. The body of the email stated “REVERSE YOUR DIABETES OR HYPERTENSION IN 30 DAYS WITH SHAMBALLAH HEALING CENTER … Medical & Pharmaceutical Industries treat your diabetes or hypertension … just like the red warning light in a faulty car engine. You aren't treating your diabetes or hypertension when you take diabetes tablets, insulin or hypertensive tablets … Genevieve Flight; Ancient Healing Initiator @ Shambhallah Healing Center will work directly with you and others who will be part of this process for 30 days to reverse your Diabetes or Hypertension. Your readiness to follow this Reversal Protocol exactly as directed means you will be saying goodbye to your Diabetes or Hypertension after 30 days. This is a onetime fee and you will be required to follow through the 30 days Protocol”.
Issue
The complainant, who understood that the treatment offered by the Shambhallah Healing Center could not treat diabetes, challenged whether the ad discouraged essential treatment, for which medical supervision should be sought.
Response
Shambhallah Healing Center did not believe that they needed to provide documentary evidence to support their claims because it was their policy that complainants must undergo their treatment in order to declare that it did not work. They invited the ASA to select a candidate to undergo their treatment. They further stated that they had been using these methods to treat patients since the second century BCE.
Assessment
Upheld
The CAP Code required that marketers must not discourage essential treatment for conditions for which medical supervision should be sought. For example, they must not offer specific advice on, diagnosis or treatment for such conditions unless that advice, diagnosis or treatment was conducted under the supervision of a suitably qualified medical professional.
The ASA considered that consumers would understand the ad to mean that the treatment offered by Shambhallah Healing Center would cure or treat diabetes. We further considered that the claim “Medical & Pharmaceutical Industries treat your diabetes or hypertension … just like the red warning light in a faulty car engine. You aren't treating your diabetes or hypertension when you take diabetes tablets, insulin or hypertensive tablets” explicitly discouraged essential treatment for conditions for which medical supervision should be sought, and discouraged treatment being conducted under the supervision of a suitably qualified medical professional. We noted Shambhallah Healing Center’s comments that they had considerable experience in treating patients. However, we did not consider that this constituted suitable qualification to be a medical professional.
We therefore concluded that the ad discouraged essential treatment for conditions for which medical supervision should be sought and therefore breached the Code.
The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rule
12.2
12.2
Marketers must not discourage essential treatment for conditions for which medical supervision should be sought. For example, they must not offer specific advice on, diagnosis of or treatment for such conditions unless that advice, diagnosis or treatment is conducted under the supervision of a suitably qualified health professional. Accurate and responsible general information about such conditions may, however, be offered (see rule 12.11).
Health professionals will be deemed suitably qualified only if they can provide suitable credentials, for example, evidence of: relevant professional expertise or qualifications; systems for regular review of members' skills and competencies and suitable professional indemnity insurance covering all services provided; accreditation by a professional or regulatory body that has systems for dealing with complaints and taking disciplinary action and has registration based on minimum standards for training and qualifications.
(Medicines, medical devices, health-related products and beauty products).
Action
The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told Shambhallah Healing Center not to state or imply that they could treat conditions that required medical supervision unless that treatment takes place under the supervision of a suitably qualified health professional.
