Loveland clinic owner to pay $40,000 after violating order to stop marketing fake COVID-19 cures

Sept. 23, 2021 (DENVER)— Attorney General Phil Weiser today announced a Loveland family nurse practitioner will pay $40,000 after failing to comply with a cease-and-desist order from the Colorado Department of Law, instructing him to stop illegally marketing and overstating the effectiveness of alleged cures for COVID-19, including the anti-parasite drug Ivermectin often used in animals.

According to the consent judgment filed with the Larimer County District Court today, Siegfried Emme, owner of Loveland Medical Clinic, will pay only $20,000 if he complies with the order.

“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,” said Weiser. “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.”

In March of 2020, Emme advertised IV therapies as a treatment for the coronavirus and later began advertising other treatments he claimed were cures on his social media and blog while overstating their effectiveness in fighting COVID-19. Emme infrequently posted disclaimers, and those that were posted on his blog page were misleading and frequently contradicted the blog posts themselves.

The Department of Law sent a cease-and-desist notice to Emme in November of 2020, and he agreed to take down the misleading posts, but then failed to remove them all.

In addition to payment, Emme also agreed to the following in today’s consent judgment:

  • To not make any false or misleading statement in connection with the sale of health or medical services in Colorado;
  • To not make false, misleading, or unsubstantiated representations about the effectiveness of his therapies as treatments or preventative measures for COVID-19. This includes but is not limited to false, misleading, or unsubstantiated representations relating to Ivermectin, the MATH+ protocol, the I-Mask protocol, or intravenous vitamin therapy as treatments or preventative measures for COVID-19; and
  • To clearly disclose if treatments are approved by the Food and Drug Administration, if they are recommended by the National Institute of Health, if there are associated warnings or advisories by any federal or state government agency relating to the treatment or preventative measure, and if the treatment is experimental.

If you notice any scams, fraud, price gouging, or other attempts to take advantage of Coloradans during the COVID-19 pandemic, contact Stop Fraud Colorado at 800-222-4444 or StopFraudColorado.gov.

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Media Contact
Lawrence Pacheco
Director of Communications
(720) 508-6553 office | (720) 245-4689 cell
Lawrence.pacheco@coag.gov