27 June 2019
Daniel Ryan
By email only:
[FYI request #10008 email]
Dear Mr Ryan,
Official Information Act #18.210 - Health Claims
1.
We refer to your request received on 30 May 2019 for information you believe may
have been missing from our OIA response OIA 18.187 on 29 May 2018, specifically:
1.1
a complaint received by the Commerce Commission (Commission) during the
past twelve months1 about ‘SleepDrops’ which refers to health claims; and
1.2
any other complaints which may not have been caught in OIA 18.187 using
the keywords: “cure, treat, therapeutic, therapy, remedy etc.”
2.
On 5 June 2019, we advised you that:
2.1
“remedy” and “treat” did not return any results for release;2
2.2
“cure”, “therapy” and “therapeutic” returned eight results relevant to your
request for release;3
2.3
we had added the terms “curing”, “treatment”, “medicinal”, “healing” and
“relief” which returned seven results relevant to your request for release;4
and
2.4
we had also added the terms “restore”, “curative”, “heal”, “restoration”,
“remedial treatment”, “relieving” and “corrective” which did not return any
results relevant to your request.
3.
We noted that some of the search terms return the same complaints as other terms,
and invited you consider whether there were additional or alternate search terms
which better reflected the information you are seeking
1
We have treated this as the period from 30 May 2018 to 30 May 2019.
2
“Remedy” returned one complaint which is relevant to your request but not eligible for release (see
paragraph [9]), “treat” did not return any complaints relevant to your request.
3
“Cure”, “therapy” and “therapeutic” returned two complaints which are relevant to your request but not
eligible for release (see paragraph [9]).
4
“Curing” and “relief” returned two complaints which are relevant to your request but not eligible for
release (see paragraph [9]).
3542192.1
2
4.
On 10 June 2019, in response to our email of 5 June 2019, you advised that you were
happy with the keywords at paragraphs [2.2] and [2.3] above.
5.
We have treated this as a request for information under the Official Information Act
1982 (OIA).
Our response
6.
We have decided to grant your request.
7.
We have provided summaries of 14 complaints and 1 general enquiry returned by
the keywords at paragraphs [2.2] and [2.3] above. This includes two complaints
about ‘SleepDrops’, as per paragraph [1.1] above (including your complaint,
ENQ0519634) . These are in
Attachment A.
8.
We have prepared summaries of the complaints pursuant to section 16(1)(e) of the
OIA, to protect the privacy of natural persons under section 9(2)(a) of the OIA. We
have not summarised your complaint, ENQ0519634.
9.
We have withheld three complaints which are still subject to assessment by the
Commission (as per paragraph [5] to [11] of our letter dated 29 May 2019) under
section 6(c) of the OIA, to prevent prejudice to the maintenance of the law. These
complaints are:
Complaint number
Date received
Keyword(s)
ENQ0519282
23/10/2018
“Cure”, “therapy”, “therapeutic”
ENQ0526460
12/05/2019
“Remedy”, “Cure”, “Curing”
ENQ0525801
15/05/2019
“Relief”
10.
If you are not satisfied with the Commission's response to your OIA request, section
28(3) of the OIA provides you with the right to ask an Ombudsman to investigate and
review this response. However, we would welcome the opportunity to discuss any
concerns with you first.
11.
Please note the Commission may publish this response to your request on our
website. Your personal details will be redacted from any published response.
12.
If you have any questions in regards to this request, please do not hesitate to contact
us at
[Commerce Commission request email].
Yours sincerely
Mary Sheppard
OIA Coordinator
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