by Harry K. Fidler, Murad Hussain, and Kirk Ogrosky
In cities across the country, healthcare and other essential workers have been greeted in the evenings with cheers and clanging pots and pans as they return home from working tirelessly to combat the global pandemic that has changed life as we know it. As these heroes rush to and from the front lines saving lives, government prosecutors and agencies are turning their attention to companies and individuals that are supposedly rushing to promote false treatments for COVID-19. For example, the Department of Justice has announced various fraud charges against doctors and others while the U.S. Food & Drug Administration has issued 90 warning letters (so far) to entities “for selling fraudulent products with claims to prevent, treat, mitigate, diagnose or cure” the disease. In April, the FDA issued one such letter to Genesis II Church for allegedly marketing a bleaching agent as a COVID-19 cure, and the federal government sued the church and its founders (PDF: 239.97 KB) and won a preliminary injunction against their distribution of the product. Then, on June 30, DOJ filed a criminal complaint charging the church’s founders (PDF: 574 KB) with conspiring to defraud the United States and to deliver misbranded drugs, and for criminal contempt for allegedly violating the preliminary injunction.