Quit smoking success claims misleading - ASA

A complaint by Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) over a `bioresonance' treatment clinic claiming a 90 percent success rate for smokers wanting to kick the habit has been upheld by the Advertising Standards Authority.

Quit Smoking Clinic's website claimed just one hour with its bioresonance machine at a cost of $350 was all it took for nine out of 10 smokers to quit for good.

"Nicotine has an electromagnetic charge over your body giving you the craving to smoke. The bioresonance machine inverts the energy patterns of nicotine which are then passed to the body via electrodes. This produces phase cancellation (and) the charge of nicotine is reduced," the website said.

It said the process made it easier for the body to eliminate nicotine over a 24 hour period, reducing cravings as the body detoxified.

ASH said medical studies found nicotine had a half life of 2-3 hours which meant even a heavy smoker would be able to clear the nicotine from their system in around that time, without any assistance.

"This claim misleads smokers in believing that they need this treatment to do what would happen naturally."

It said the most effective, clinically proven treatments expected just 20 percent of patients to stay quit six months down the line. Those treatments were funded by the New Zealand Ministry of Health and were either free or were subsidised to cost $6 per course.

"The unsubstantiated claims of a 90 percent success rate misleads smokers into thinking they have this vastly increased chance of success by paying $350 for a hocus pocus treatment with no clinical evidence of efficacy or safety."

The Quit Smoking Clinic accepted the claim could be misleading, but hit back against ASH saying the treatment had helped people quit and an anti-smoking group should support that.

"I have observed at least eight out of 10 clients do remain smoke free for one month...at least 65 percent of clients who visited my clinic still remain smoke free after six months," the owner said.

"With any natural health product it will naturally draw some form of criticism from conventional treatments. I remember not too long ago many people were negative to acupuncture.

"I find it alarming how ASH can severely criticise a treatment which is clearly helping many New Zealanders quit smoking."

They listed five other clinics in New Zealand offering similar treatments which "will also need to be informed of the authority's findings".

The complaints board found the clinic's claims had not been proven and as such it "did not observe a high standard or social responsibility".

Without evidence to back up scientific claims the clinic breached the Therapeutic Services Advertising Code and the complaint was upheld.