AARP, TINA.org and the National Consumers League join forces to challenge Prevagen memory improvement claims

Cred­it: TINA.org

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Pre­vagen Mem­o­ry Study Falls Short (Truth in Advertising):

In 2011, four years after launch­ing Pre­vagen, Wis­con­sin-based Quin­cy Bio­science embarked on a study to prove that the active ingre­di­ent in the sup­ple­ment — apoae­quorin — improves mem­o­ry. It did not yield the results Quin­cy was hop­ing for. In fact, the Madi­son Mem­o­ry Study failed to show a sta­tis­ti­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant improve­ment in the treat­ment group over the place­bo group — sci­en­tist speak for Pre­vagen wasn’t any bet­ter than a place­bo at improv­ing memory.

But rather than pack it in and start afresh with a new study, like a high school biol­o­gy stu­dent whose hypoth­e­sis has been proven wrong but who still needs an A to pass the class, Quin­cy con­coct­ed new, less reli­able ways to look at the com­plet­ed study … This week, TINA.org joined with AARP and its char­i­ta­ble arm, AARP Foun­da­tion, as well as the Nation­al Con­sumers League and a group of adver­tis­ing law aca­d­e­mics in fil­ing a legal brief in sup­port of revers­ing the dis­missal. In the brief, TINA.org and its part­ners argue that the dis­trict court erred in its inter­pre­ta­tion of post hoc analy­ses as com­pe­tent and reli­able sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence — the legal stan­dard for sub­stan­ti­a­tion when it comes to mak­ing health claims.

The brief concludes:

If a fed­er­al dis­trict court was mis­led by Quincy’s mar­ket­ing and prof­fered sub­stan­ti­a­tion, what hope is there for the mil­lions of aging Amer­i­cans con­cerned about mem­o­ry loss and cog­ni­tive decline to accu­rate­ly dif­fer­en­ti­ate sci­en­tif­ic facts from Quincy’s fiction?

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About SharpBrains

SHARPBRAINS is an independent think-tank and consulting firm providing services at the frontier of applied neuroscience, health, leadership and innovation.
SHARPBRAINS es un think-tank y consultoría independiente proporcionando servicios para la neurociencia aplicada, salud, liderazgo e innovación.

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