FTC

June 7, 2020

FTC’s Crackdown on COVID Claims: Insights on Novel Regulation from the Integrative Canaries in the Coal Mine

News feeds for the natural products and integrative health practitioner fields have in recent weeks included a drumbeat of alerts on actions of the Food and Trade Commission (FTC) on what the agency considers inappropriate claims relative to COVID-19. A major natural health organization blasted the FTC’s efforts as practitioner gagging and censorship and is mounting a campaign to stop the activity. Others in these fields point to bullseyes some practitioners and companies have painted on their foreheads via gross over claims (“this mushroom will cure your COVID”) that laser-guide FTC’s actions. At a sober center amidst a tangle of issues – state/federal jurisdiction, free speech, provider-patient relationship, and the peculiar institution of in-office sales of natural products – sit Laura Farr and Rob Kachko, ND. They are the executive director and president, respectively, of the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians (AANP). Among the multiple questions is whether naturopathic doctors and others in integrative medicine are “canaries in the coal mine” of a new, potentially widening push by the FTC and other federal and state agencies into the regulation of integrative and functional medicine practitioner offices.