Tuesday 27 April 2010

Navraj Sihra - woo, or not?


Some of the adverts in Nexus Magazine do their best to be anonymous, offering little more than a telephone number or an email address.


This advert ('RADIONICS' - top left corner) is a good example - I wonder who the advertiser could be?


By the way, Navraj Sihra is an artist. (He's the one in the middle, looking glum.)

Navraj shares a phone number and an email address with someone who is offering to "correct" disease at a distance. Are they related? We should be told!

ASA complaint, perhaps not concerning Navraj at all, follows.

"I write to complain about an advert in "Nexus" magazine (April-May 2010, Vol 17, No 3, p77, top-left corner).

The advert, entitled "RADIONICS. We are vibrating atoms" promotes a distance healing service.

I suspect that the advert may be in breach of two sections of the British Code of Advertising, Sales Promotion and Direct Marketing (CAP) code. I can provide an original copy of the advert by post, if required.

1. The CAP Code, Section 3.1, states "Before distributing or submitting a marketing communication for publication, marketers must hold documentary evidence to prove all claims, whether direct or implied, that are capable of objective substantiation."

2. The CAP Code, Section 50.1, states "Medical and scientific claims made about beauty and health-related products should be backed by evidence, where appropriate consisting of trials conducted on people..."

3. Under Sections 3.1 and 50.1, I challenge whether the advertiser holds documentary evidence to prove any of the following claims, and I challenge whether the claims are backed by evidence, where appropriate consisting of trials conducted on people:

(i) Disease is caused by "atoms out of synchronisation"
(ii) The advertiser can "correct" disease "at a distance"

4. I confirm that I have no connections with the advertiser, the magazine or with the alternative medicine industry in general. I confirm that I am not involved in legal proceedings with the advertiser or the magazine."