The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has convinced a court that a company that offers homeopathic remedies was "misleading and deceptive" when it tried to argue that said remedies provide a viable alternative to the pertussis vaccine.
The case dates back to early 2013. The company, Homeopathy Plus, posted a series of three articles that claimed (among other things) that the vaccine for pertussis (whooping cough) is unreliable and ineffective. Literature currently at the site criticizes vaccines more generally, while promoting homeopathy as effective in preventing "malaria, dengue fever, Japanese encephalitis, leptospirosis, and meningococcal disease."
As noted in that article, the whooping cough articles drew the ire of Australia's Therapeutic Goods Administration Advertising Complaint Resolution Panel and Therapeutic Goods Administration, which sought a retraction of the published claims. Homeopathy Plus, however, declined to obey these orders. At that point, the Competition and Consumer Commission filed a federal case.
Now, long after the original articles have been pulled, a court has ruled that the claims of the articles were bogus: "In fact, the Vaccine is effective in protecting a significant majority of people who are exposed to the whooping cough infection from contracting whooping cough." In addition, the claims that homeopathic remedies could help in this area also came in for criticism, with the court finding the articles "made false or misleading representations that Homeopathic Treatments have a use or benefit" in preventing pertussis infection.
Penalties and other injunctive orders will be decided after a hearing in February.
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