Since the free market has failed to ensure transparency or clamp down on deceptive advertising, perhaps it is time for a regulator or a CCP-oversight trade body to step in and set the terms for social media content creators By Babar Khan Javed
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n the 19th of December 2020, Gourmet News Network (GNN) anchor Imran Riaz Khan published a video on Facebook and YouTube that attempted to create a case against UHT packaged milk, citing anecdotal evidence. Gaining virality across WhatsApp with the classification of “forwarded many times’’, the video attempts to dissuade audiences from using packaged milk and instead use raw milk or fresh milk. The elephant in the room is that GNN is owned by Gourmet Foods, which in turn not only sells what it markets as fresh milk but also
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creates similar narratives against what is deems loose milk citing that the consumption of loose milk ‘can cause viral and bacterial diseases’ and that loose milk is usually collected and transported in contaminated environments. In his video, Khan makes claims without providing scientific evidence, with statements going against recommendation of the World Health Organisation (WHO), against the regulations of global and Pakistani food authorities, against the endorsement of the Pakistan Medical Association, and against the official technical positions of scientific & technical associations. “Pakistan Dairy Association is aware of and gravely concerned regarding a recent video made by an anchor for his personal YouTube
channel as it is not based on facts and in the time of a global pandemic can be dangerously misleading to the public at large,” said Dr Shehzad Amin, CEO of the PDA. “In the video, the anchor has tried to establish a link between the consumption of packaged milk with subsequently higher percentage of Covid-19 cases and deaths.” Speaking to Profit, Dr. Amin expressed concerns that such a video might mislead consumers, undermine the efforts of government and regulatory authorities to control the spread of the virus as consumers may increase their exposure of infection by increasing interaction with others and compromise their immunity by consuming loose milk whose nutritional value is questionable.
