Background
Summary of Council decision:
Two issues were investigated, both of which were Upheld.
Ad description
A teleshopping presentation promoting a sphere and a pyramid clock containing the mineraloid shungite, seen on The Jewellery Channel on 13 October 2022, featured the presenters making a range of claims about the health benefits of the products and referencing their ability to block electromagnetic fields (EMF) and 5G signals.
The claims made about the health benefits of the shungite products included: "This stone has more of I’d say healing type of properties than any other stone that I've ever come across”; “All the doctors and scientists that have investigated and said of this gemstone have agreed unanimously that this gem is a miracle”; “The gem of protection, healing, and detoxification …”; “Obviously there’s things that we can't quote from the book. And you know, about certain viruses and certain, you know, illnesses that we know we wouldn't, it wouldn't be right for us to quote on air …”; “The author of this book I'm sure in it put up fatigue, autoimmune, gastro, asthma, certain aches and pains it’s helped with …”; “What if you embrace this? At £10 on budget pay today and you discover that you have more energy. You're less tired”; “I was nervous today, had a little, little bit of a queasy stomach … so I tucked this shungite in and I honestly have been very calm, very serene, I feel great”; and “the only gemstone in the only source in the world of the antioxidant fullerenes which have been shown - again, things that we can't mention because we don't wanna, you know, go down that road.”
The claims made about shungite’s ability to block EMF and 5G included: “Citing many double-blind scientific and medical studies on Shungite, the author Regina Martino explains its many protective, healing and detoxifying properties, including its ability to counteract the harmful effects of electromagnetic fields …”; and “We've only started to realise how much electromagnetic energy interferes with our life, our health, our everyday mental state … This is the first stone that's ever been able to capture that and contain it in those hollow atoms so that you're not, you know, hopefully getting bombarded with crazy stuff … we don't know what the long-term effects are of having constant connection with our mobile phone. We’re not aware of the long-term effects of Wi-Fi …, electricals, washing machines, light switches, PCs, tablets, iphones, android phones, computers and they keep upping. We used to have what, 3G, then it went to 5G phones is it? And I don't even know if it's more than that now.”
Issue
1. The complainant challenged whether the references to blocking electromagnetic fields, including 5G signals, were misleading and irresponsible.
2. The ASA challenged whether the claims regarding various health benefits and healing properties of shungite, including that it was effective for viruses, fatigue, autoimmune, “gastro”, asthma, aches and pains, were misleading and could be substantiated.
Response
1. & 2. Shop TJC Ltd t/a The Jewellery Channel said they always sought to act responsibly and in line with the Code and that they instructed their teams accordingly. They confirmed that they would conduct an internal investigation to understand and avoid breaches happening in the future. They further stated that they promoted and retailed more than 200,000 products annually and many of these products were presented by external guests. They acknowledged that while they trained their presenters and guests and provided them with a full briefing on the products that they were promoting, because the presentations were conducted on live television, they accepted that external guests could make mistakes or depart from a script on-air.
They confirmed that in response to this complaint they had not repeated and would not repeat the claims in future presentations and would suspend the promotion of the shungite pyramid clock and shungite sphere. Additionally, they had spoken to the teams concerned and alerted them to this issue, and they would cover the topic in their next training course. Lastly, they reiterated their commitment that they would roll-out a programme of training, guided by specialist, external advertising lawyers, for relevant staff to remind and update them on their responsibilities under the Code, including the risks associated with health and medical claims.
Assessment
1. Upheld
The teleshopping presentation featured the claims “Citing many double-blind scientific and medical studies on Shungite, the author Regina Martino explains its many protective, healing and detoxifying properties, including its ability to counteract the harmful effects of electromagnetic fields …”; and “We've only started to realise how much electromagnetic energy interferes with our life, our health, our everyday mental state … This is the first stone that's ever been able to capture that and contain it in those hollow atoms so that you're not, you know, hopefully getting bombarded with crazy stuff … we don't know what the long-term effects are of having constant connection with our mobile phone. We’re not aware of the long-term effects of Wi-Fi … and they keep upping. We used to have what, 3G, then it went to 5G phones is it? And I don't even know if it's more than that now.”
The ASA considered that consumers would understand those claims to mean that the shungite pyramid clock and shungite spheres were capable of blocking electromagnetic fields, including 5G. We therefore expected to see evidence substantiating this claim. The Jewellery Channel did not seek to defend their claim and did not provide us with such evidence.
Furthermore, the BCAP Code required marketers to ensure that advertising was prepared with a sense of responsibility to consumers and society. The ad claimed that EMF and 5G were harmful, when we understood that there was no robust scientific evidence which substantiated that was the case. The ad encouraged consumers to buy the products on that basis and we therefore considered that it exploited and encouraged those concerns, which was irresponsible.
We concluded that the claims that the products were capable of blocking electromagnetic fields, including 5G, were misleading, and that the claims that EMF and 5G were harmful were misleading and irresponsible.
On that point, the ad breached BCAP Code rules 1.2 (Responsible Advertising), 3.1 (Misleading Advertising, 3.9 (Substantiation).
2. Upheld
The BCAP Code stated that medicinal or medical claims and indications may be made for a medicinal product that is licensed by the MHRA, the Veterinary Medicines Directorate or under the auspices of the European Medicines Agency, or for a CE-marked medical device.
We considered that the claims “fatigue, autoimmune, gastro, asthma, certain aches and pains it’s helped with”; “The only gemstone in the only source in the world of the antioxidant fullerenes”; and “There’s things that we can't quote from the book. And you know, about certain viruses and certain you know illnesses that we know we wouldn't, it wouldn't be right for us to quote on air” were medicinal claims. We understood that the shungite pyramid clock and shungite sphere not licenced by the MHRA as medical devices and therefore, medicinal claims should not have been made for the products. We note that, even if the products were CE-marked medical devices, claims for efficacy could not have been made on that basis alone, and substantiation must be held to support such claims.
The BCAP Code further stated that broadcasters must hold documentary evidence to prove claims that the audience was likely to regard as objective and that were capable of objective substantiation. The ad featured the health claims “gem of protection, healing, and detoxification”; “You discover that you have more energy, you're less tired”; and “I was nervous today, had a little, little bit of a queasy stomach … so I tucked this shungite in and I honestly have been very calm, very serene, I feel great”. As with medicinal claims, marketers are required to hold generally accepted scientific evidence substantiating those claims before including them in ads. In the absence of such evidence, we concluded that the claims were misleading and had not been substantiated.
On that point, the ad breached BCAP Code rules 3.1 (Misleading Advertising), 3.9 (Substantiation), 11.2 and 11.4 (Medicines, medical devices, treatments and health).
Action
The presentation must not be broadcast again in the form complained about. We told Shop TJC Ltd t/a The Jewellery Channel to ensure that they do not mislead consumers by making medicinal claims for products that were not CE-marked medical devices and to hold adequate substantiation before making objective health-related claims. Furthermore, we told them to ensure that their ads did not irresponsibly exploit consumer concerns.
