J&J First Aid medicated powder superior absorbency claim substantiated -- NAD.

J&J FIRST AID MEDICATED POWDER SUPERIORITY CLAIM SUBSTANTIATED, the National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus ruled in a case report published Sept. 18. NAD disagreed with Gold Bond Medicated Powders manufacturer Martin Himmel's assertion that trade ads claiming the superior absorbency of Johnson & Johnson Consumer Products' First Aid Maximum Strength Medicated Powder are not truthful and accurate. NAD initiated the review by letter on June 26.

The watchdog group determined that "the cumulative data supplied by J&J" regarding absorbency of its medicated powder "forms a reasonable basis" for its claim. Additionally, NAD noted, Himmel has not shown "that there was a material flaw in the advertiser's data" or provided "better data" disproving the advertiser.

Created in-house, J&J's print ads say its First Aid powder "absorbs four times more moisture than Gold Bond Extra Strength." The claim includes a footnote that explains the comparative claim is based on a "J&J Competitive Absorbency Test." Below the claim is an "Absorbency Index" graph that plots bars labeled with the Gold Bond and First Aid powder names against five measurement levels -- 20, 40, 60, 80 and 100. The bar labeled Gold Bond powder reached the number 22 while the First Aid bar hit the number 100.

Himmel took issue with what it believed was an implied claim of the graph -- that the First Aid powder would absorb 100% of skin moisture. J&J, in its response, said the graph visually displays the claim that First Aid absorbs four times more moisture. NAD concurred that, taking into account the ad's intended and probable audience, who are likely to understand such an index, "the graph merely illustrates the claim."

Himmel declared its tests prove there is no significant difference in absorbency between talc-based Gold Bond powder and J&J's First Aid medicated powder, which primarily contains cornstarch.

In one of its tests, Himmel measured the absorbency of the two powders by adding water to each product in test tubes, which were then centrifuged to separate unabsorbed water. The water was then weighed. The mean grams of water absorbed per grams of powder were 1.06 for Gold Bond and 1.10 for First Aid. Himmel charged that if First Aid was four times as effective as Gold Bond, its values should be four times higher. Another lab test conducted by Himmel used low pressure nitrogen gas rather than centrifugation to remove the unabsorbed water. Again, the conclusion was that the products were "approximately equally absorbent," according to NAD's case report.

J&J called Himmel's test a "liquid retention test," noting that "liquid retention is more appropriate for testing the drainage of a substrate previously saturated with liquid such as testing diaper properties (leakage) after contact with excel fluids."

In its critique of one of J&J's supporting tests -- an adaptation of the Gravimetric Absorbency Testing System (GATS) -- Himmel argued that a number of factors could have affected the results. In the J&J test, a layer of powder was placed on a glass microfibre filter with a pore size of 1.6 microns, which was placed on top of a porous plate that was in contact with a 1% saline solution.

Himmel claimed that clogging and air bubbles could distort the test results, NAD reported. According to the case report, Himmel argued that the J&J GATS method "is principally used for measuring the amount of water absorbed from one side of fabric to the other, whereas the goal of powder is to absorb moisture from the top of skin."

Defending the use of its GATS test, J&J said the method, which starts from a dry powder, "will lead to a different and more meaningful result (given actual use) than one that starts from a saturated mixture of powder and water," NAD noted. The summary statistics for the tests consistently indicated an overall mean of 0.198 cc/gram for Gold Bond, compared to 0.920 cc/gram for First Aid, an over four-fold increase for the J&J product. The case report says that J&J argued that it would not "have expected or achieved such consistent and reproducible results" if the problems pointed out by Himmel were "relevant."

NAD agreed with J&J that the Himmel tests "do not reflect the conditions of absorbent powder use on skin as well as" J&J's GATS method. NAD ruled that J&J "sufficiently addressed" each of the alleged flaws in the GATS method.

J&J submitted FDA data to NAD to support the claims for First Aid. Among the tests cited were two studies finding greater absorbency for cornstarch than talc, one of which used a humidity chamber, which Himmel deemed an inappropriate facsimile of the product's use. J&J retorted that "the air moisturization studies are not to be minimized as they, too, indicate that cornstarch absorbs more than talc," the case report says. NAD backed up J&J, stating that "these data and FDA's published conclusions about cornstarch's absorbent qualities must have some relevance to cornstarch's use as a skin powder or they wouldn't have appeared in a skin protectant monograph."

Himmel also questioned J&J's consumer preference data, arguing that "the application of powder to infants is hardly an analogous situation to the one intended for the use of these powders and that the data does not reflect any degree of superiority," NAD said. J&J responded that its in-home tests were "indicative...that people can perceive a difference between talc and cornstarch products that would satisfy the relevancy requirement of comparative claims." NAD ruled that Himmel did not submit data contradicting J&J's consumer perception data, nor did the firm prove that there was a material flaw in J&J's testing.