Gotcha!

In 2004, a simple science experiment conducted by two fourteen-year-old Kiwi schoolgirls exposed false advertising claims made by the second largest food and drug company in the world. Yesterday, New Zealand courts fined that company more than $200,000 for fifteen breaches of its Fair Trading Act.

Made by GlaxoSmithKline, Ribena is a well-known juice drink outside of the US. One reason for its popularity? It has long claimed to be filled with wholesome, healthy vitamin C. In fact, advertisements for the product claimed the blackcurrants in Ribena syrup have "four times the vitamin C of oranges."

That was before Jenny Suo and Anna Devathasan decided to enter the Manukau Institute of Technology science fair. They expected their experiment--measuring the vitamin C content in a variety of juices--to be completely straightforward. They certainly didn't expect any surprises. As it turned out, they found that all the products they tested contained the advertised levels of the vitamin--except one. Multiple tests showed healthy, wholesome Ribena had ZERO vitamin C.

Since then, GlaxoSmithKline has admitted misleading the public. Odds are, they wouldn't have stopped if it hadn't been for two fourteen-year-old chemists.