The owner of a medical clinic in Loveland has to pay $40,000 after he failed to stop marketing alleged cures for COVID-19, such as an anti-parasite drug often used for farm animals, while illegally overstating their effectiveness.
Siegfied Emme, owner of Loveland Medical Clinic, will have to pay only $20,000 if he complies with the order, the Colorado State Attorney General’s Office said Thursday.
In March 2020, Emme advertised IV therapies as a treatment for the coronavirus on social media and his blog. Later, he began posting about other treatments, overstating their effectiveness in fighting the virus, the attorney general’s office said. Included in his social media posts were those falsely promoting Ivermectin, often used in livestock to get rid of roundworm infections, as a cure for the virus.
He was issued a cease-and-desist order by Colorado Department of Law last November, requiring that he take down misleading posts on the clinic’s Facebook page. He agreed to remove them but didn’t follow through, the office said.
Under a consent agreement filed Thursday, Emme agreed to stop making false or misleading statements in connection with the sale of health or medical services in Colorado, to not make false or unsubstantiated claims about the effectiveness of his therapies as preventative measures for COVID-19 and to clearly disclose if treatments are approved by the FDA, the attorney general’s office said.
“My office will hold accountable those who continue to break the law after they are told to stop–and in so doing continue to place the public at risk,” Attorney General Phil Weiser said in a statement. “Falsely advertising alleged ‘cures’ and providing misleading information about treatments for COVID-19 can cause direct harm to patients and delay them from seeking the care they need.”