CBC released a retraction this Thursday admitting that several of their Marketplace studies contained incorrect information.
The retraction stated that some reports about vitamins and supplements from November 2015 produced incorrect results. The specific studies mentioned included one on the popular vitamin C supplement Emergen-C and two types of protein powder, GNC Lean Shake 25 and Cytosport Muscle Milk.
The initial studies suggested that all three of these products were flawed. The vitamin C supplement was found to have only one third of its claimed vitamin C content. Both protein powders were found to have evidence of “spiking.” Spiking refers to a process by which manufacturers mix in non-protein ingredients so that their product will appear to contain more protein than it really does, and then put false information on the label.
“Results [of studies] showed that some products’ labels significantly overstated the protein content, slipping in amino acids and other substances and claiming them as protein on their labels,” reports Forbes.
However, upon re-testing these products, Marketplace found that the results of the initial tests were inaccurate. In follow-up tests, the vitamin C supplement did actually meet its proposed amount of the vitamin, and the protein supplements did not show any evidence of spiking. The retraction admitted that the initial results of all three of these reports were inaccurate, and that the companies they critiqued were actually being more honest and ethical than the initial reports suggested.
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Protein powder is a popular supplement for many young people/ cashback-facile.com
On an immediate level, the implications of this retraction are fairly straightforward. Consumers who stopped using the supplements as a result of the initial findings can now resume their use again, safe in the knowledge that the supplements are, indeed, what they claim to be. Retailers who lost customers due to the false information will work to reclaim this lost business with the newfound evidence that their products are, indeed, telling the truth. The false allegation that these supplement companies were lying is being dispelled by the public admission that the reports were not accurate.
However, these studies are not entirely isolated, and the false information has widespread implications that extend beyond the immediate impact. One of these implications is the fact that CBC has cited these studies as evidence in other articles that are not directly related to the studies at hand, compromising the accuracy of these other articles.
For example, in November, CBC published an article critiquing Health Canada’s new rules for supplement approval. While a large portion of the evidence for this article is uncontested, the article also cited statistics from the false Marketplace studies. This article had to be revised, and an editor’s note had to be added in before the article explaining the issue.
It is not just the faulty reports themselves that have been contested, but also every article or publication that has ever cited these reports as evidence, creating a domino effect in which many health-related articles now have to be called into question.
Additionally, CBC now has to work through issues of trust, as they have to find a way to regain the trust of some readers and partners that may have been lost after the publication of the inaccurate studies. The retraction emphasizes the regret that CBC feels, their desire to make reparations, their plans to re-evaluate their protocols surrounding research and tests, and their desire to maintain integrity and trust.
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