DOJ: Shop improperly marketed tea as COVID treatment

The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Thursday announced a civil action against a Brooklyn-based shop it said was marketing, without evidence, a tea as being able to prevent or treat COVID-19.

According to the DOJ, B4B Earth Tea LLC advertised an herbal tea product as being an effective coronavirus treatment “without competent or reliable scientific evidence to support those claims.”

“Further, the defendants allegedly made deceptive statements about a scientific study to bolster their unproven COVID-19 claims. The complaint also alleges Earth Tea is an unapproved new drug the defendants are selling in violation of the FDCA,” the DOJ said.

The shop’s owner,  Andrew Martin “Busta” Sinclair, is also named as a defendant in the government’s complaint. The Hill has reached out to B4B Earth Tea LLC for comment.

The civil action was also brought by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Food and Drug Administration.

“Unfortunately, there are too many people who are taking advantage of this crisis by pushing alleged treatment products that are nothing more than snake oil,” U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Breon Peace said.

According to the FTC, the shop made ads that said, “Earth Tea works!! The all natural instant immune booster clinical trails proves its [sic] effective against Covid19.”

The DOJ said the shop owner claimed to have anecdotal evidence and that he had conducted a 15-person study in India to back up the statements, but the FTC said the study had a small sample size, no control group and was not published in a recognized scientific journal.

Judy McMeekin, the Food and Drug Administration’s Associate Commissioner for Regulatory Affairs, said products that are advertised like B4B Earth Tea’s herbal teas may “delay patients from seeking proven treatments from their health care provider.”

“Preying on patients’ vulnerabilities during the COVID-19 pandemic is unacceptable,” McMeekin said.

Doctors and public health experts have spent a significant portion of the coronavirus pandemic debunking claims about what can be used to prevent or treat COVID-19, including ivermectin, an anti-parasitic that many in the right wing have touted as a “miracle” treatment.