Nurofen faces class action lawsuit

After a Federal Court order to pull the 'Specific Pain Range' of tablets from shelves, Nurofen is now facing a class action lawsuit for misleading consumers. 

The packaging on these products implied that they treated specific types of pain (back pain, migraine pain, period pain or tension headaches), however all of these products were identical; the only difference was the packaging. 

The active ingredient in all four of the products was 342 mg ibuprofen lysine, a painkiller which does not treat specific ailments. 

Australian Competition and Consumer Commision (ACCC) Chairman Rod Sims stated that “The retail price of the Nurofen Specific Pain Products was significantly higher than that of other comparable analgesic products which also act as general pain relievers. Price sampling conducted by the ACCC before the proceedings were commenced indicated that the Nurofen Specific Pain products were being sold at retail prices almost double that of Nurofen’s standard ibuprofen products and the general pain relief products of its competitors.”

Do you think Nurofen was intentionally misleading consumers? Have you ever purchased one of the products under scrutiny?

Bannister Law is asking those who purchased the products to sign up for the class action lawsuit, seeking refunds for the purchased products. 

Read more on ACCC.

7 comments

Cannot see anything wrong with it myself

Of course it may affect those that cannot or are too lazy to read the contents.

The main problem I see if people had pain all over and took 2 tablets for back pain, period paid headache and Migraine all in one hit.

The class action is organised by some greedy barrister trying to get rich on those less fortunate.

Of course it's a rip-off. Some uninitiated (naive) person who suffers fro all of the pains appearing on the packaging could purchase each when one would do. This is false advertising designed to increase sales, no matter how you cut it.

ABBY --  You're right there. I don't know about anyone else but I always read on the packet what is in the tablets. Blind Freddy would have seen they are the same. Will wait and see how many decide to go for the class action.

Many tablets are doing this and so many are charging different amounts for the same ingredients, another rip off done by drug companies.

I certainly agree it is misleading.   This company knew what it is doing.  It only had to list one under the other in black on the front of the packet ..... back pain, period pain, migraine, tension headache.

The rotters had a different price for each one.

I hope they get fined millions.

 

A smilar falsity is by the makers of Panadol There are many uses for panadol in different labelled packages all with different prices.

Looking at the description you will find they are all 500mg Paracetamol.

So you can get 500mg Paracetamol for different ailments in different packets for many different prices.

The Panadol brand actually have different ingredients added as examples  Panadol Flu and Cold have an extra ingredient to dry up mucous, Panadol Osteo is 600 or 800 Mgs of Panadol in a slow release format different to the standard 500mg format so they are all different targeting different illnesses unlike the Nurofen which all contained the same ingredients but sold under different targets.

I should imagine you would need proof of purchase before you could join the class action?

You betcha!

Apparently you can make a declaration.

Vivity8/7/2007.

There has been warnings about Panadol Osteo not being effective and making some people actually feel ill, not just in pain as before taking them.

I gave some to a friend who has arthritis and had run out of ordinary panadol. If made her fill quite nauseous on the 2 occasions that she used them. She only took one tablet at a time. A few days later there was a health warning about them so I asked her to take them to a pharmacy for disposalSome pharmacies accept medications that are out of date or no longer needed.

I wasn't suggesting Panadol for any particular use just pointing out to Monika that The different Panadols on sale for different things have different ingredients as opposed to Nurofen which all have the same ingredients although in different packaging.

As an aside I found Panadol Osteo useless for arthritis as it doesn't act as an anti-inflammatory for arthritis just as a pain reliever. Too much Panadol can cause liver damage too.

7 comments



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