7-Up Maker Will Stop Making Health Claims About Drink

by Rachel Tepper. Original article at Huffington Post on 7/22/2013.

If you find yourself in need of a Vitamin E fix, you should no longer assume you'll get it from 7-Up.

The drink's producer, Dr Pepper Snapple Group, has dropped the nutrient from several 7-Up varieties following a lawsuit that it misrepresented the benefits of drinking the Vitamin E-infused beverages. Vitamin E is known to have antioxidant properties.

The sodas affected by the change are regular and diet Cherry Antioxidant, Mixed Berry Antioxidant and Pomegranate Antioxidant.

The conflict began in November, when the Center for Science in the Public Interest filed a class action lawsuit against the drink maker on behalf of a California man who purchased 7-Up drinks with Vitamin E. According to the lawsuit, the man was not aware that the products contained only a small amount of Vitamin E and did not contain juices from the fruits advertised on the sodas' labels.

"Non-diet varieties of 7-Up, like other sugary drinks, promote obesity, diabetes, tooth decay, and other serious health problems, and no amount of antioxidants could begin to reduce those risks," CSPI executive director Michael F. Jacobson said in a November press release. "Adding an antioxidant to a soda is like adding menthol to a cigarette—neither does anything to make an unhealthy product healthy."

Not long after CSPI's filing, Dr Pepper Snapple Group announced that it would phase out products with antioxidants by early 2013. It said the decision was not connected to the lawsuit.

This article was excerpted from the original article written by Rachel Tepper for Huffington Post. Visit the link for the full article, including the response from the 7-Up Maker.

Photo credit: ClassActionCentral.com