As if we needed any more evidence for her mendacity.
Wendy Bell is now promoting another COVID-19 misinformer to her adoring throng. Take a look.
Were you to find yourself at Wendy Bell's Facebook page, you'd find
this:
Oh, Wendy. Now you know that isn't the whole story, don't you? Not even a large part of it, right? You've left out some very important parts, haven't you? You know that he's not being sued by the FTC for his support of those
"remedies" but rather for something else, right?
Before we go any further, let's take a step back to explain what's going here:
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is taking unprecedented action against what it says is deceptive marketing of purported COVID-19 treatments.
The FTC has charged St. Louis-based chiropractor Eric Nepute, DC, and his company Quickwork with violating the COVID-19 Consumer Protection Act by marketing products containing vitamin D and zinc as proven to treat or prevent COVID-19, the agency said in an announcement.
Dr. Eric Nepute - not a medical doctor and certainly not an epidemiologist but a chiropractor.
Ok, let's do this.
Here is the letter the FTC sent to Dr Eric in May of last year:
Dr. Nepute:
This is to advise you that FTC staff has reviewed your website at the URL https://www.neputewellnesscenter.com/ in May, 2020. We have also reviewed your social media pages at the URLs https://www.facebook.com/drericnepute and https://www.facebook.com/neputewellness/, where you advertise products and services including chiropractic care, intravenous vitamin therapy, and Vitamin D supplements. We have determined that you are unlawfully advertising that certain products or services treat or prevent Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19).
And in the letter later (or later in the letter if you prefer - some might like the
former, I prefer the latter) we find:
It is unlawful under the FTC Act, 15 U.S.C. § 41 et seq., to advertise that a product or service can prevent, treat, or cure human disease unless you possess competent and reliable scientific evidence, including, when appropriate, well-controlled human clinical studies, substantiating that the claims are true at the time they are made. For COVID-19, no such study is currently known to exist for the products and services identified above. Thus, any coronavirus-related prevention claims regarding such services are not supported by competent and reliable scientific evidence.See that, Wendy? They say he's "unlawfully advertising" stuff as COVID-19 treatments that have no scientific support. That's the offense. It's his deceptive advertising and not his support of the zinc and Vitamin C as COVID treatments.
You must immediately cease making all such claims. In addition to the claims identified above, you are also advised to review all other claims for your products and services and immediately cease making claims that are not supported by competent and reliable scientific evidence.
You understand the difference, right?
After digging a little deeper, we find this is from the FTC Complaint against our good Doctor of Chiropractic:
Defendants [Dr. Nepute and Quickworks, LLC] sell nutritional supplements containing Vitamin D and zinc, among other products. Recently, Defendants have been advertising their Vitamin D and zinc products—including “Wellness Warrior Vita D”, “Wellness Warrior Zinc”, and others—on social media and the internet as drugs capable of treating, or preventing COVID-19. Defendants even claim that their products are more effective than the available COVID-19 vaccines. Defendants lack valid factual or scientific bases for these claims, which are frequently accompanied by equally unsupported assertions regarding the applicable science. In short, Defendants are selling their products by disseminating misinformation, exploiting fears in the midst of a pandemic, and posing a significant risk to public health and safety. [Emphasis added]
Have you gotten the point here, Wendy?
Evidently they're also saying that Nepute violated the COVID-19 Consumer Protection Act.
But Wendy, maybe you think that the law itself is unfair, right?
So, let's look at that, shall we?
This is what the FTC has to say about the act:
For the duration of the COVID-19 public health emergency declared pursuant to section 319 of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 247d), this Act makes it unlawful under Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act for any person, partnership, or corporation to engage in a deceptive act or practice in or affecting commerce associated with the treatment, cure, prevention, mitigation, or diagnosis of COVID–19 or a government benefit related to COVID–19. The Act provides that such a violation shall be treated as a violation of a rule defining an unfair or deceptive act or practice prescribed under Sec. 18(a)(1)(B) of the FTC Act.
If we dig even deeper, we find that the COVID–19 Consumer Protection Act is part of HR 133, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021. (It's page 2094 of that PDF, if you wanna go see it. The text matches with the FTC says about it.)
But maybe, Wendy, you might be thinking it was some sort of lib'rul, big guv'ment socialistic legislative overreach that Biden, Schumer, Pelosi and AOC secretly forced upon you and your chiropractic friend.
Um, no.
It was signed into law on December 27, 2020. Tell me, who was president then?
It passed the Senate on December 21, 2020 by a vote of 92-6. Tell me, who controlled the Senate then?
Wendy, given all of the above, do you really think Dr Nepute was sued for supporting "natural" remedies to COVID?
Wendy Bell, Mayor of Mendacity.