Televangelist Jim Bakker is being sued by the state of Missouri for selling fake coronavirus cures on his website.
On Monday, the Jim Bakker Show and six other companies were warned by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to stop selling unapproved products and treatments.
Bakker’s website offered products like “Silver Sol Liquid,” that claimed to be able to diagnose or cure the coronavirus illness, COVID-19. In a letter to the Jim Bakker Show, the FDA said the products are in violation of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.
“The Secretary of Health and Human Services … has determined that a public health emergency exists nationwide as a result of confirmed cases of COVID-19. Therefore, FDA is taking urgent measures to protect consumers from certain products that, without approval or authorization by FDA, claim to mitigate, prevent, treat, diagnose or cure COVID 19 in people,” the agency wrote.
The letter ordered Bakker to take immediate action to correct the violations and gave him 48 hours to take the products off of his site.
The suit says Bakker has been selling the “Silver Solution” — also known as “Silver Sol” and “Optivida Silver Solution” — since at least February 12, 2020. He promoted the product on his show, saying “it hasn’t been tested on this strain of the coronavirus, but it has been tested on other strains of the coronavirus and has been able to eliminate it within 12 hours.”
He also claimed the government proved Silver Sol has the ability to kill every pathogen it has ever been tested on, including SARS and HIV. These claims, which are reiterated on Bakker’s website, are completely baseless.