Hollywood Drug Maker Scorned Nationally, Advertising Locally

By Thomas Francis Wed., Aug. 26 2009 at 11:39 AM

Categories: Broward, Science

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/broward/

A screen grab from the Broward edition of this morning's Miami Herald.

A month after a national magazine named Resveratrol Ultra among the drug supplements that profit from what appear to be misleading advertisements and in the week following its being mentioned in a similar context in the New York Times and then sued by Oprah Winfrey, that same controversial product is appearing in a prominently featured ad in the Miami Herald, seen above.

Despite that infamy, the product made by FWM Laboratories in Hollywood has never appeared in an article in the three major local dailies -- just as an advertisement. Or at least, a search of local news archives didn't turn up anything in South Florida besides the three Juice posts linked above.

And that's not to suggest anything underhanded -- these things are bound to happen by coincidence as often as not. Plus, here at New Times, we have our own guilty conscience.

But as you can see, the video is of Barbara Walters from 60 Minutes -- a legitimate news program, which clearly hasn't given its consent to have its editorial product used in this fashion. And yet there it is next to the articles in a legitimate newspaper. So the ad is made more effective in the Herald than it is in the context where it usually appears, in simple Google searches for resveratrol.