Qualified health claims on package labels

Abstract

Qualified health claims arising from the landmark 1999 Pearson v. Shalala ruling were predicted to be in widespread use, either filling an important consumer information void or misleading the masses. Yet the results from the current content analysis, which examines more than 1200 instances in which qualified health claims could have been made, reveal that qualified health claims are relatively uncommon on product packages. Indeed, these claims are less common than their consumer- equivalent structure-function claims and are significantly overshadowed by structure-function claims for which little scientific evidence exists. © 2009, American Marketing Association.