The Federal Trade Commission ordered Dalal Akoury, MD, and a set of companies she controls that operate as AWAREmed Health and Wellness Resource Center, to pay $100,000 for allegedly making false claims about the treatment of addiction, cancer, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease and other conditions.
The settlement bar Dr. Akoury and her clinic from making deceptive claims and from formatting ads that appear to be news or informational programming, the FTC said March 16. It also requires the physician and her clinic to notify affected patients and to submit compliance reports to the FTC for more than a decade.
Dr. Akoury and her Johnson City, Tenn.-based clinic previously operated out of Myrtle Beach, S.C., the FTC said. The agency has sued her in the past over allegedly false COVID-19 claims on AWAREmed's website, but dropped the suit after the claims in question were removed from the site.
The FTC said AWAREmed ran ads boasting unfounded claims of a 98 percent improvement rate for "just about anything" including cancer and other serious chronic diseases. Its website claims that "virtually all patients at any disease stage" would improve at least moderately after treatment at the clinic, the FTC said.
In 2017 and 2018, Dr. Akoury appeared in nearly 100 TV segments hosted by local Fox News affiliate reporters that appeared to be news interviews, the FTC said. It was never disclosed that some of those appearances were actually paid ads placed by Dr. Akoury.