Quite the Science Project

Anna Devathasan and Jenny Suo, both New Zealand schoolgirls, decided to conduct a science experiment in 2004, meant to prove their hypothesis that cheaper brands of blackcurrant cordial would be less healthy than more expensive brands. The one against which all others were expected to fall short was to be Ribena.
Three years later and the makers of Ribena blackcurrant cordial, GlaxoSmithKline, find themselves in a court in Auckland facing 15 charges relating to misleading advertising. The firm could get their wrists slapped with up to NZF$3 million in fines. Quite the science project!
The girls had chosen Ribena as their gold standard because of its claims that "the blackcurrants in Ribena have four times the vitamin C of oranges". What they found instead was that the Ribena contained only a minimal amount of the vitamin, while the orange juice of a rival company contained almost four times more. Finding the inverse of Ribena's claims not being what they had expected, the girls, then 14-year-olds, repeated the testing, but still found the same results.
Up to this point, the whole situation could still have been retrievable for GSK, but they made the mistake of thinking they were too big to bother with a couple of little pests. Children! No-one they had to listen to. When the girls tried to get feedback from GSK, the great sage at the other end of the phone line hung up on them. Bad decision.
The next group to get involved was "Fair Go" a TV consumer affairs programme, which suggested they take their experiment findings to the government commerce commission. This watchdog's investigation found, among other things, that ready-to-drink Ribena contained no detectable levels of vitamin C.
GSK has now admitted that its claims about Ribena may have misled consumers. They have also brought the two girls in for a visit to GSK to thank them for bringing the whole problem to their attention. I think the girls were rather adventurous to accept the invitation. I mean, there could have a dreadful accident that saw the girls "slipping" on a walkway over the vats of Ribena cordial. They may have drowned before they could be fished out, much to the unspeakable sorrow of GSK, but at least they would not have been submitted to the torture of death by vitamin C overdose.
GSK has also issued statements meant to reassure its loyal imbibers that its products other than in Australia and New Zealand are all trustworthy. They say they have "conducted thorough laboratory testing of vitamin C levels in Ribena in all other markets" and proven that the contents match the label claims.
Of course, for some of us, that first trip to court is all we need to lose our trust, completely. GSK might find a large number of its former customers crossing the grocery store aisle to pick up cordial bottled by the competition.
When I was standing in front of a class of grade eight students who were telling me that they were powerless to change anything in the world created for them by their parents, this is exactly the kind of story I would be thrilled to find. I would tell them all about it, and point out to them that even one person on their own is never completely without power. The only time anyone is totally without a voice is when they fail to raise it.
Why aren't these girls being given as much media coverage right now as spoiled-brat Spears and camera-hungry Jolie? They have both done something worth knowing about, something to show to young women as an example worth following. What they did took mental process and intelligence. It didn't require an unrealistic thinness or more money than most of us will ever have. It simply took some intelligence.
Why aren't Anna Devathasan and Jenny Suo all across the pages of every mag out there right now?