Nearly every week it seems as though the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is sending out a new round of warning letters to companies marketing products and therapies as effectively treating or preventing COVID-19. We previously wrote blog posts here and here about sets of such letters, and our colleague, Marissa Koblitz Kingman, recently wrote an alert about the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Food & Drug Administration (FDA) closely monitoring such conduct as well. In that alert, Marissa discusses a DOJ complaint against a Utah man and two companies for allegedly selling a fake cure for COVID-19 and the DOJ’s plan to work closely with the FDA to shut down schemes to promote and sell COVID such products.
These federal agency actions serve as a cautionary reminder for any company contemplating the sale of products or the use of promotional materials that connect products to COVID-19. If doing so, or intending to do so, legal counsel should be consulted.