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Feds Allege Queens Business Sold Wearable "Virus Shut Out" Cards That Falsely Claim To Kill COVID-19 In The Air
By
Sophia Chang
Published Nov 10, 2020
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By
Sophia Chang
Published Nov 10, 2020
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Two people at a College Point business are accused of peddling wearable cards purporting to emit chlorine dioxide that would rid the surrounding air of coronavirus, according to federal prosecutors.
Po Shan Wong, 55, of Jericho in Nassau County and Zhen Wu, 35 of Flushing are charged with conspiring to distribute and sell unregulated and misbranded pesticides. They were due in federal court on Tuesday.
Wong was the general manager and Wu the sales manager at a business called JCD Distribution, which had an address on 131st Street in College Point. From May until July, federal authorities with the U.S. Department of Justice said the business advertised so-called “virus shut out cards” from Japan on their website and Facebook page, as well as through phone sales.
The business claimed the cards were coated with chlorine dioxide -- a pesticide and cleaning agent similar to bleach that does not kill the coronavirus -- and would serve as “portable space disinfection and sterilization” with a success rate of 99%, according to court documents.
“The brazenly false claims allegedly promoted by the defendants about their product potentially endangered the public not only by claiming to protect against the Covid-19 virus, but also by exposing users to the health hazard posed by a misbranded pesticide,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Seth DuCharme in the release Tuesday.
In April, the Food and Drug Administration released a warning “not to purchase or drink chlorine dioxide products sold online as medical treatments, as the agency is not aware of any scientific evidence supporting their safety or effectiveness and they pose significant risks to patient health.”
The federal prosecutors said the cards contained sodium chlorite, which could block breathing -- “breathing air with sufficiently high concentrations of chlorine dioxide may cause difficulty breathing, irritation in the nose, throat and lungs, shortness of breath, chronic bronchitis and other respiratory problems,” the DOJ wrote in a press release Tuesday.
The company’s Facebook page had images of a woman wearing the blue “virus shut out” card around her neck on a lanyard, and a man wearing one on his suit jacket -- other pictures showed the card attached to a child’s backpack and a stroller, the criminal complaint said. The business also purported their cards would “replace masks” and sold them in sets of 50 at $9.50 per card, according to prosecutors.
The company originally tried to sell the cards to local pharmacies but were turned away because the cards “were featured on the news as ‘not good for humans,’” the criminal complaint said.
After undercover agents placed an order and received a shipment of the cards, a search warrant was executed on the College Point business in July where law enforcement agents seized more than a hundred boxes of the cards. It's unclear why it took months for Wong and Wu to be charged.
If convicted, Wong and Wu face up to a year in prison.
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COVID-19
Sophia Chang
Sophia Chang is a former WNYC and Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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