Don Cherry, COLD-fx cleared in federal investigation

The makers of the OTC drug COLD-fx and company spokesperson/hockey commentator Don Cherry have been let off the hook in an NDP-initiated lobby ethics investigation in Ottawa, reports the Montreal Gazette.

NDP ethics critic Pat Martin called for the inquiry after the pugnacious former Boston Bruins coach and other COLD-fx employees met with Prime Minister Stephen Harper privately in 2006 and gave him a signed hockey jersey and a case of COLD-fx pill bottles.

Soon after, COLD-fx received regulatory approval from Health Canada to market COLD-fX as reducing "the frequency, severity and duration of cold and flu symptoms by boosting the immune system," reports the Gazette. "Company shares jumped nearly 60 per cent in the wake of the news," notes the article.

But the federal registrar of lobbyists ruled the meeting "did not constitute a sufficient amount of time to be considered a significant part of their duties."

UBC pharmacology professor James McCormack last year criticized COLD-fx's healing claims.

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