Clinic owner fined $40K for violating COVID order

LOVELAND — The owner of Loveland Medical Clinic will pay $40,000 for continuing to market alleged COVID-19 cures contrary to a state mandate to stop, the state attorney general’s office said.

“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,” Attorney General Phil Weiser said in a statement.

Siegfried Emme received a cease-and-desist order from the Colorado Department of Law after illegally marketing and overstating the effectiveness of alleged cures for the disease online.

He’d promoted IV therapies on his blog and through social media in March 2020, later adding claims related to other treatments. Disclaimers were infrequent, the attorney general’s office said.

Emme agreed to remove the posts after receiving the cease-and-desist order in November but failed to remove all the posts.

A consent order filed with Larimer County District Court said Emme will pay only $20,000 if he stops.

Emme also agreed not to make false or misleading claims related to medical care in the state, including representations regarding therapies for COVID-19. He also agreed to say if treatments are approved by the Food and Drug Administration or recommended by the National Institute of Health, to note state or federal warnings or advisories related to COVID treatments or prevention, and to say whether these are experimental.

Loveland Medical Clinic is a dba for 4AHealthierU Corp., also in Loveland.

Emme referred questions to his attorney, Nicholas Ores, in Loveland. A message left for Ores was not returned.  

The case is 2021CV30678, filed Sept. 23, 2021; State of Colorado v. 4AHealthierU Corp. and Siegfried Emme, an individual. 

Larimer County District Court, Fort Collins, Colorado.

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