BLCKMNTN's shilajit 'restore your health' claims upheld by the RCC as medical advertising

BLCKMNTN's website sold a single product, BLCKMNTN Authentic Shilajit, a food supplement. Its homepage and mission pages carried claims like "We believe in addressing problems at the source, instead of only fighting the symptoms", "It is our mission to help people restore their health", and product benefits including better skin health, a stronger immune system and improved mental clarity.

A complainant argued these were impermissible medical and health claims for a food supplement — that a foodstuff may not be attributed properties of preventing, treating or curing disease, and that the benefits claims were unauthorised health claims.

BLCKMNTN defended the first two as the owners' personal mission and motivational slogans, not product claims. For the benefit claims it conceded entirely, apologised, said the claims were overlooked, and confirmed they had already been removed.

The RCC chairman ruled the 'mission' wording must be read in the context of the product claims around it, so the average consumer took 'addressing problems at the source' and 'restoring health' as claims that the supplement could treat health problems — a medical claim for a foodstuff. The benefit claims breached the unauthorised-health-claims rule. He recommended the advertiser not advertise in that manner again.