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A homeopathic doctor in California is the first person to face federal charges for selling fake COVID-19 vaccination cards, authorities have said.
Doctor Juli A. Mazi of Napa, Calif., Also sold COVID-19 “vaccination lozenges” to patients, federal prosecutors said. She was arrested on Wednesday and charged with one count of wire fraud and one count of misrepresenting health issues, according to a criminal complaint. Mazi faces up to 20 years in prison and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines, authorities said.
Mazi sold lozenges for $ 243 which she said contained a “very tiny amount” of coronavirus that would trigger an immune response and provide “lifelong immunity to COVID-19,” according to the complaint. To encourage customers to purchase the lozenges, prosecutors said, Mazi falsely told them that the three COVID-19 vaccines authorized for use in the United States contained “toxic ingredients.”
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She also offered homeopathic vaccines for childhood illnesses that she said would meet California schools’ vaccination requirements, according to the complaint.
Mazi could not immediately be reached for comment. It was not immediately clear if she had a lawyer.
She describes herself on her website as a naturopathic doctor who received her doctorate from the National University of Natural Medicine in Portland, Oregon. She is trained in “traditional medical sciences” and “ancient and modern modalities” that use nature to heal, the site says.
It also offers “classical homeopathy”, a medical system developed over 200 years ago in Germany. It uses the theory that a disease can be cured by a substance that produces similar symptoms, and the notion that drugs are most effective at minimal doses, according to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. There is little evidence to support homeopathy as an effective treatment for disease, the center said, citing a 2015 assessment from the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia. A number of concepts in homeopathy are inconsistent with basic scientific concepts, the center said.
Authorities began investigating Mazi after someone filed a complaint in April saying relatives bought him the COVID-19 vaccination lozenges and that they had not received any of the approved COVID-19 vaccines. In addition to the lozenges, prosecutors said, Mazi also sent the COVID-19 family vaccination cards that listed Moderna. She asked them to mark the cards to falsely state that they received the vaccine on the date they ingested the lozenges.
It is not known how many people purchased COVID-19 vaccination lozenges from Mazi, but it received more than $ 200,000 through Square, a digital payment processor, from January 2020 to May 2021, according to the complaint. . The majority of transactions did not state the purpose of the payments, but 25 transactions valued at more than $ 7,500 were noted to indicate they involved COVID-19 treatments, according to the complaint.
“This defendant allegedly defrauded and endangered the public by attacking fears and spreading misinformation about FDA-approved vaccinations, while peddling bogus treatments that put people’s lives at risk,” said Lisa Monaco, deputy attorney general, in a press release. She added that the use of fake vaccination cards allowed people to “bypass efforts to contain the spread of the disease.”
Steven Ryan, a special agent in charge of the Inspector General’s office at the Department of Health and Human Services, said the department would continue to investigate “fraudsters” who mislead the public.
“This doctor has violated the overriding public trust in medical professionals – at a time when integrity is most needed,” he said in a statement.
In May, California authorities arrested a bar owner for selling fake COVID-19 vaccination cards at his business. There are also concerns that people sharing photographs of their vaccination cards, with their name and date of birth, could make themselves vulnerable to identity theft or scams.
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