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Boots Opticians fined for claims about blue light hazards, protection
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The General Optical Council fined Boots Opticians 40,000 for failing to comply with the Advertising Standards Agency’s codes for its Boots Protect Plus Blue lenses.
The General Optical Council (GOC) claimed that Boots failed to obtain sufficient evidence to justify its claim that there is a direct link between harmful blue light and retinal damage over time for an ad that ran in The Times magazine in January 2015.
The GOC also stated that Boots failed to obtain sufficient evidence to justify the claim that its lenses filter out a meaningful amount of harmful blue light.
Two people, one of whom is a pharmacist, complained to the Advertising Standards Agency challenging whether two claims Boots made in its advertising were misleading and unsubstantiated, according to the GOC hearing summary. Boots claimed that the blue light from LED TVs, smartphones, sunlight and energy-saving bulbs causes damage to retinal cells over time and that Boots Protect Plus Blue (BPPB) lenses protect against blue light from the listed sources.
The Business Registrant accepted the ASA finding and formulated revised wording for company literature on BPPB lenses going forward.
Source: www.optical.org