Too cool for school:

GlaxoSmithKline, the second-largest food and drug company in the world, was yesterday fined $217,500 in the Auckland District Court after it admitted 15 breaches of the Fair Trading Act.

The case was brought by the Commerce Commission after a science experiment in 2004 by 14-year-old Pakuranga College schoolgirls Jenny Suo and Anna Devathasan raised questions about the vitamin C content in Ribena.

I don’t think Ribena is sold in the US, but it aggressively targets the youth market in Ireland. I gladly admit it has never passed my lips, but I once got one mistakenly from a vending machine and was appalled by the labeling. Each bottle proudly proclaims the lack of artificial sweeteners, despite the fact that sugar is the first thing on the ingredient list. While this may be technically legal (labeling standards suck the world over), it is a serious breach of intellect to claim that sugar is a naturally occurring substance any more than Splenda. Or jet fuel for that matter.

So I can’t really feign surprise to see they have been caught lying about their vitamin C content. I can, however, wag a finger of shame at a court who felt that a behemoth pharmaceutical company falsely marketing “healthy” drinks to children felt punitive damages didn’t even warrant what GlaxoSmithKline spends on paper clips in a month.