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Oh how I remember as a kid I used to get the old sniffle. My dear old mother would make sure I was comfortable in bed, hot water bottle, a supply on tissues to wipe the running nose.
There was something else too.
A big bottle wrapped in an orange cellophane wrapping. It was apparently good for me, would build my strength back up.
Today sees many different varieties, all different flavours, each one individually telling us all how good it is for us.
I'm talking about Lucozade. Here's how I remember it:
It was almost like a kids Champagne back then in the 1970's - only time it was ever seen, in my street at least, was when someone was ill.
So many to choose from today though and such pretty packaging:
Original, Lemon, Orange and Tropical.
Mmmm, yummilicious.
Thank you Glaxo for making such a wonderful soft drink.
Sadly, Lucozade isn't all it's cracked up to be.
The Independent are running with the story that GlaxoSmithKline have been forced to warn parents that the drinks may cause hyperactivity.
Glaxo aren't the only culprits to mislead.
The makers of Irn Bru, a soft drink popular with the Scottish public, is also said to make children hyperactive.
Irn Bru is made by A.G. Barr plc. For those folk who read this blog that are from overseas, Irn Bru tastes like pink bubblegum... and it's made from girders!
As for Lucozade, well I seem to recall it tasting like normal fizzy pop with aspirin.
Here's what the Independent has to say:
A newly introduced EU law compels both drinks to display a warning that they contain artificial colours linked to behavioural problems in young children.
Manufacturers were asked to remove the colours two years ago by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) following a study which found they worsened the behaviour of young children. Lucozade Original's lurid yellow appearance comes from sunset yellow, or E110, while Irn-Bru's distinctive orange glow comes from sunset yellow and a red colouring, ponceau 4R (E124).
The article continues with:
Both also contain sodium benzoate (E211), a preservative that was found to cause hyperactivity by Southampton University, but which is not covered by the EU rule. Lucozade's owner GlaxoSmithKline warned shoppers about sunset yellow voluntarily, but it and Irn-Bru's maker AG Barr have to state that the additives "may have effects on activity and attention in children".
Glaxo keeping information back with regard to the safety of children?
Surely not?
Déjà vu anyone?
Question: Any child been prescribed an SSRi because they were deemed hyperactive?
Thank goodness the Food Standards Agency [FSA] are on the ball. Can you imagine if Lucozade was deemed to be a medicine and it was left to the MHRA to make a decision?
Ah, I can see it now. MHRA writing to Glaxo to tell them to go and sit in the naughty corner.
As for Irn Bru, I'll let some Scottish blogger have a rant.
GlaxoSmithKline: Do more, feel better and live longer... but struggle along that journey!
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'THE EVIDENCE, HOWEVER, IS CLEAR...THE SEROXAT SCANDAL' By Bob Fiddaman
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I've said it before and i'll say it again. If Glaxo could market rat poison as a pharmaceutical product, they would have everyone on it in a heart-beat. If they could sell drain cleaner as a tonic to the elderly then they would probably do that too. They would literally do anything for a profit. There is no concern for ethics, consumer rights, morality or patient health. Pharmaceuticals like Glaxo are basically chemical companies. They have reams of patents on chemicals, they also have stockpiles of chemicals, toxins and various substances that they need to sell. They offload their toxic junk into any concoction or brew they think they can get people to buy. Mix a load of artificial flavours, additives and coloring, label it as an energy drink, market it as a tonic and hey presto you have lucozade. Buy an obscure, ambiguously effective hypnotic drug off a smaller research lab, bury negative information that crops up over the years, market it as an anti-depressant and you have seroxat. Mix up some sugar, some chemical crap and purple coloring and there you have Ribena. They don't care if it rots your teeth, or if lucozade makes kids hyper or seroxat kills kids.They are in the chemical business not the health business, it is not in their interest to make people well or healthy. Glaxo literally feeds off the dying, the diseased and the vulnerable. It doesn't matter to them if their drugs are effective or not. What matters is that people take them and that their chemicals sell. Effectiveness and safety is not part of the pharmaceutical agenda. Any allusion to this is purely for marketing purposes. Corporate companies like Glaxo are ruthless, heartless and utterly sociopathic. The only way to stop this madness is for people to take control of their own health. But i doubt if that will happen in my lifetime.
ReplyDeleteThank goodness the Food Standards Agency [FSA] are on the ball.
ReplyDeleteThis has nothing to do with the FSA, but our real Government in Brussels. All competences to do with food regulation is done by the EU. The FSA is so irrelevant in fact that the current coalition government is abolishing it.
funny you say if they could market rat poison they would. fluroide is added to drinking water and a host of other things.. look up what it is.. and then look up the sole ingrediant of rat poison.
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