POM Wonderful received a letter from the FDA dated February 23, 2010 concerning statements on our websites regarding POM Wonderful’s products.
We are currently reviewing the FDA’s concerns.
As strong advocates of honest labeling and fair advertising, POM Wonderful wants its customers to know that all statements made in connection with our products are true, and are supported by an unprecedented body of scientific research.
POM is confident about the depth of our research; we look forward to working with the FDA to resolve these issues and to continued clear and honest communications with consumers about the health benefits of our products.
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23 responses to “POM Wonderful Received a Letter from the FDA…”
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Snake oil companies like this should be sued out of existence. Too many people lack the education or smarts to understand that these products do not work as advertised. The sad part is that people who wasted their hard-earned money buying this stuff will never see a refund or apology from the company.
I’m appalled you at POM have the gall and nerve to keep all the therapeutic claims regarding Cancer, Diabetes, Heart Disease, and laughably penis dysfunction available on your website. I mean, they’re all still here and all promoting your products.
It’s infuriating to read page after page on your site promoting direct links between consuming your brand of juice, and sundry health benefits. According to this website POM drink not only prevents cancer, it makes cancer go into remission, make radiation therapy more successful.. and hey.. all this WITHOUT ANY SIDE EFFECTS. Uh oh….
You know what’s missing from all this research? You have the scientific method down right, testing a hypothesis narrowing variables, etc. But you are missing something that many people forget about the scientific process: its called rigor. That means you cannot rely on a single set of research to make a meaningful conclusion about a claim/hypothesis. The accepted scientific standard for rigor regarding therapeutic claims is something along the lines of the various FDA drug/device approval processes.
Rigor. Not just a single relatively short exploratory research paper for a single therapeutic claim. You’re not promoting science, you’re abusing the process as a marketing tool. Rigor. Rigor.
Phase II study of pomegranate juice for men with rising prostate-specific antigen following surgery or radiation for prostate cancer. Clinical Cancer Research 2006 Jul 1;12(13):4018-26
Pomegranate fruit juice for chemoprevention and chemotherapy of prostate cancer. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2005 Oct 11:102(41):14813-8. Epub 2005 Sep 28.
Effects of pomegranate juice consumption on myocardial perfusion in patients with coronary heart disease. Am J Cardiol. 2005 Sep 15;96(6):810-4.
Comparison of antioxidant potency of commonly consumed polyphenol-rich beverages in the United States. J Agric Food Chem. 2008 Feb 27;56(4):1415-22
Just to list a few. Yeah… lets put all of our trust in the FDA and the drugs they approve, because their RIGOR proves that these drugs are safe and effective. I’ll take my chances with POM thank you. What pharmaceutical company do you work for Doug?
Just think of me as an observer with no ties to medicine whatsoever.
It seems POM takes a shotgun approach to scientific research. Inundate the public with tons of results about varying conditions, and claims. Keep popping off more and more clinical trails about slightly different things, instead of providing the needed rigor.
Look at the sum of the claims. It is extremely unlikely any one product is going to cure/prevent/mitigate cancer, diabetes, heart disease, penis problems at in one swig (and with no side effects).
Its too bad you wish to personally attack critics instead of address the issues.
bahahahaha i think its really great you people are arguing about this on a website called ‘pomwonderful’ ….idk about their claim to fame w the cure for erectile dysfunction but their juice is delicious. they should just work on making the tops easier to open.
Donna, we are working on the lids and thank you for a different perspective.
Doug,
Do you have a clue what you are even talking about. You can spew all the critical scientific jargon that you want to, but the bottom line is that I have personally seen the results of ellagic acid in cancer treatment. Treatment of terminally ill people that your FDA approved methods did nothing for. After taking high doses of ellagic acid and keeping the body ph slightly basic the cancer simply goes away. Unfortunately people like you who worship the FDA, keep this from being accepted. There is so much money in treatment and research why would big pharmaceutical companies want a cure? Good job Doug! Thanks for looking out for us.
aw doug dont worry:(
Every study that I’ve read about pomegranate – known by the ancients as the fruit of the gods – indicates that it has antioxidant properties that seem to have a positive effect prostate health. This is not New Age Woo Woo. It is the result of scientific inquiry and can be confirmed in other scientific forums. Anti oxidants prevent cancer. As a cancer survivor I make sure that I drink pomegranate juice one time daily and I make sure my husband does. That the company itself is relaying what is known by the research scientific community should be lauded. This information should not be kept from the general public. I understand the concerns of the FDA, but with E Coli running rampant, its efforts here are misplaced. Surely there is a way to compromise, for instance by including a disclaimer noting that the statements they make are based upon their own research and the reader should check general scientific literature for confirmation. Otherwise, the FDA is protecting the interests of Big Pharma, not the American people.
The only reason the FDA doesn’t like what is being said here is because they cannot control it and make money from it. They would rather push pills made in a lab than have people buy natural products. I for one will keep drinking POMwonderful. Is there anyway we can get larger bottles of it?
I just came on this site by accident. I don;t even like the taste of your products.- sorry!.. That said, I support what youy are doing.
As a non-medical person supporting others with Cancer, and watching the kind of crazy marketing that high tech hospitals do for gamma ray knives and lasers as promising cures for cancer, big pharma pushing drugs with little or no real evidence of significant benefits, I found it profoundly sad and funny that the FDA would go after you in this absurd way.
I have read literature advertisements for big farma drugs like Tarceva as wonder drugs that cost tens of thousands of dollars for treatment that have been well tested and offer only a one-5 month median difference in survival. thats an abuse of the scientific method!
Good luck in your work!
As for the folks who
To Doug,
Apparently you have never had a loved one go through the sufferings of cancer. If you had, and you had done the endless hours and months of research finding out what helps keep cancer at bay, you would have came to the same conclusion as I have who has gone through 3 loved ones, including a young son right now battleing cancer. Nature has what it takes, pharmaceutical corporations are helpful, but they would have you assume that they are the only answer. If they are, we are in trouble. SInce their statistics of keeping cancer at bay is eveident as in the death sentenance the Docotor gave my son. DO THE RESEARCH then you can speak with some authority, but until then, you shouldn’t even write on this site and give those of us fighting this disease the wrong idea. You are just like another one of those FDA officials that receive their pay check from government pushing corporations designed to keep the american people in the dark and think that their only hope is to spend thousands of dollars in their so called miracle cures that they did quote unquote research on that will maybe buy you some time in ones fight against cancer. And by the way, the product they want to put my son on costs $50,000 dollars a month. Yes, that is not a type O. Why? Because they can charge it and because the FDA approves this drug , they are Legally able to do it. Thanks Doug for your blind sided opinnion.
Doug (or GlaxoPfizerMerck troll), with respect, it is YOU that is a fool and a charlatan. God forbid you, or someone you love is diagnosed with terminal cancer. You will see how utterly useless the cut, burn and poison (surgery, radiation, chemo) method is. If anyone should be sued, it is Big Pharma and the medical cabal for their useless, ineffective and barbaric (and massively expensive) cancer “treatments”.
POM is a good product and they should be free to make tempered claims where studies have shown promise. It is totally safe and certainly won’t kill you like the above methods. If you don’t like free speech, move to communist China. I am amazed POM even posted your moronic diatribe, but THEY believe in free speech, unlike yourself.
The drugs and treatments that the FDA has approved with so-called “rigor” have done nothing but make cancer the #1 killer in America. Saying that the FDA performs anything with “rigor” that doesn’t suppress actual cures is a sick joke. The reason there is not more research done on natural solutions is there is not as much money in it as radiating and poisoning sick people to death. Wake up you idiot. Look at the facts.
In this day and age of drug pushing companies advertising their wares on TV at an increasing rate, I would like to see the FDA go back in its cage and find some real problems to solve.
I have never had POM Wonderful, but after reading Ralph W. Moss’s article on POM and the FDA at Cancerdecisions.com (http://www.cancerdecisions.com/content/view/447/2/lang,english/), I intend to give it a try.
We live in an age where fast food, Aspartame, and a zillion other junk foods are constantly pushed on us. Personally, I think that it would really nice if some of our kids could be persuaded to drink POM Wonderful instead of Coke, Pepsi, 7-UP, Sprite and all the other nutrient-deficient drinks that are out there. In fact, it might even help them become healthier and thus cut health care costs and REDUCE THE DEFICIT in this cash-strapped country.
I have not seen where POM Wonderful claims as you put it “one product is going to cure/prevent/mitigate cancer, diabetes, heart disease,penis problems at in one swig (and with no side effects).” I have prostate cancer. I had my prostate removed in 2002, followed by radiation, followed by lupron (now we are talking side effects). I read in the Prostate Cancer Research Institute Website that drinking 8oz of pure pomegranate Juice, and they recommended POM Wonderful, would double the time span it would take for PSA readings to double. It took about 3 years after my last Lupron shot for my PSA to double and my having to start another series of Lupron shots. If I could increase that time span to 6 years just drinking a glass of pomegranate juice per day would be worth it. October of this year will be 2 years that I have been drinking the juice.
Doug,
While you aren’t completely off-base with your rant, it’s important to consider the downside to FDA labeling regulations with respect to nutraceuticals. Because nutraceuticals / Generally regarded as safe compounds are unpatentable, no company is going to spend the billions of dollars necessary for clinical study to gain FDA approval.
Moreover, despite the lack of full clinical studies, restricting labeling on well characterized nutraceuticals such as pomegranite or green tea extract is essentially restricting free speech. If the FDA want’s to regulate what is considered and labeled as “FDA Approved” then that is perfectly acceptable, but to disallow the labeling of silver chloride as an antibiotic is just pharmaceutical fascism.
Finally to your contention that one product can’t mitigate cancer, diabetes, heart disease and ED is not well founded. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that green tea catechins as well as other plant polyphenols act on master regulators such as heat shock proteins and deacetylases which would explain why they are so nonspecific.
Rose, you can buy larger bottles at your local grocer and at Costco. If you grocer doesn’t have them feel free ask.
It is a tragedy when a company with a good natural product has to watch what they say, or be concerned about actual users posting positive feedback about what they sell. The FDA and its gestapo like silencing tactics needs to be reined in, and preferably shut down.
A special independent counsel should be appointed to investigate how much they are financially influenced by the big pharmaceutical companies, and how the “revolving door” works with employees coming and going from the FDA to Big Pharma and vice-versa.
Americans are fed up. I never in my wildest dreams envisioned an America where the government was so twisted and corrupt. We need to take our country back. This is not Communist China or Nazi Germany. This is still America.
The FDA is a joke. It is caleed govermnet controll. I have experienced this when it comes to natural hormones.
HAve a good day