German court rules hangovers are 'illness'
A German court said in a ruling published Monday that hangovers are an "illness", in a timely judgement days after the annual Oktoberfest beer festival began in Munich.
The case landed before judges in Frankfurt when plaintiffs claimed a firm offering anti-hangover "shots" and drink powders to mix with water was making illegal health claims.
"Information about a food product cannot ascribe any properties for preventing, treating or healing a human illness or give the impression of such a property," the sober ruling from the superior regional court read.
"By an illness, one should understand even small or temporary disruptions to the normal state or normal activity of the body"—including the tiredness, nausea and headaches the company claimed its product could polish off, they added.
In fact, doctors have long since coined the word "veisalgia" as a specialist medical term for the morning after the night before, the judges noted.
© 2019 AFP
