Two NZ high schoolers catch GlaxoSmithKline lying about the vitamin content of food

[Derleth]

The story:

GlaxoSmithKline, the second-largest food and drug company in the world, was yesterday fined $217,500 in the Auckland District Court after it admitted 15 breaches of the Fair Trading Act.

The case was brought by the Commerce Commission after a science experiment in 2004 by 14-year-old Pakuranga College schoolgirls Jenny Suo and Anna Devathasan raised questions about the vitamin C content in Ribena.

OK, the wheels of justice grind slowly and less than 300 grand of anyone’s dollars isn’t going to make GlaxoSmithKline do anything it doesn’t want to do already. The point is that two kids caught a company in a lie, made it stick through science, and now a penalty is being enforced. What’s more, we all know about it. GlaxoSmithKline isn’t going to keep any of this quiet or make it just a local story.

More education should focus around students supporting or refuting hypotheses based on evidence and arguments. Stories like these ought to be much more common.

[Spatial_Rift_47]

In the interest of optimism, I think stories like this one ought to be much more common at first, and then slowly disappear as the corporations and the governments stop. lying.

[Princhester]

I understand that a prosecution in Australia is underway, too.

[Derleth]

@Spatial Rift 47

In the interest of optimism, I think stories like this one ought to be much more common at first, and then slowly disappear as the corporations and the governments stop. lying.

I certainly hope they become significantly more common, anyway. I don’t think any force on Earth or off it will make humans stop lying short of a mass extinction event.

[dynamitedave]

@Derleth

and less than 300 grand of anyone’s dollars isn’t going to make GlaxoSmithKline do anything it doesn’t want to do already.

I agree, companies caught bullshiting like this ought to be fined equivlent to a years gross sales!

[Mangetout]

I think the consumers will see to it that the company is financially punished, at least a bit - these things tend to have quite an adverse effect on sales.

[bbs2k]

@Princhester

I understand that a prosecution in Australia is underway, too.

Thank God! These students should be ashamed of what they did to GlaxoSmithKline. I hope they get the punishment they deserve.

[hawthorne]

@bigbabysweets2000

Thank God! These students should be ashamed of what they did to GlaxoSmithKline. I hope they get the punishment they deserve.

Indeed. I hope they are confined to Palmerston North and forced to wear jandals sticky from spilled L&P.