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No wonder the story of the two Pakuranga College science students exposing the misleading claims of a multinational company has made headlines all over the world this week. Jenny Suo and Anna Devathasan were in court this week to see GlaxoSmithKline fined more than $200,000 for breaching the Fair Trading Act in relation to its claims about the Vitamin C content of Ribena.
The case, brought by the Commerce Commission, resulted from a science fair experiment the two girls conducted in 2004 which showed that Ribena had nowhere near the levels of Vitamin C implied by the advertising. This is a classic David and Goliath case, and a wonderful reminder that sometimes truth and goodness will triumph over weasel words and wads of cash.
New Zealand has a rich and important history of scientific discovery - Anna and Jenny have just added a colourful chapter to that history.
