The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) sent a public letter to Alex Jones, the author and runner of the InfoWars website, demanding the journalist take “immediate actions” in relation to “unapproved” products on his website claiming to be useful for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19, while threatening Jones with legal actions if he fails to follow the request.
“FDA is taking urgent measures to protect consumers from certain products that, without approval or authorization by FDA, claim to mitigate, prevent, treat, diagnose, or cure COVID-19 in people”, the letter stated.
“Failure to immediately correct the violations cited in this letter may result in legal action, including, without limitation, seizure and injunction”, the FDA added.
The organisation argued that a number of claims Jones recently made in some of his videos, such as the one published on 10 Match and titled “Experts Say Trump Must Seal The Border Like Israel & Italy Or Face Massive Coronavirus Surge”, purport to present some of the products advertised on his website’s marketplace, including those containing colloidal silver, as effective for the prevention or treatment of coronavirus.
FDA cites one of Jones’ quotes from the video, where he allegedly said that “the Pentagon has come out and documented, and homeland security have said this stuff kills the whole SARS corona family, at point blank range. Well of course it does, it kills every virus”.
The development comes despite the fact that InfoWar website publicly specifies that “the products sold on this site are not intended for use in the cure, treatment, prevention, or mitigation of any disease, including the novel coronavirus” and that “any suggestion to the contrary is false and is expressly disavowed”.
The runner of InfoWars websites has long been criticised for promoting conspiracy theories, with some of his programmes being banned from a number of social media websites, including Facebook. Google also removed InfoWars show from its Android App this March, after accusing Jones of allegedly spreading misinformation in relation to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
