The novel coronavirus continues to roil the globe with its startling death and infection rates, and sadly some have taken to overselling the abilities of unproven cures and treatments.
Among the fraudsters are those claiming that CBD, the wildly popular hemp-derived compound, can cure or prevent the virus that causes COVID-19.
There are currently no cures or vaccines for the novel coronavirus approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and you should not let people take advantage of you by telling they have one.
According to Marijuana Moment, former NFL star Kyle Turley, a CBD advocate, recently got in trouble with FDA representatives after claiming CBD could cure COVID-19 and that the FDA was perpetrating a coverup against natural wellness.
“The last thing the world needs in these difficult and often confusing times is someone with any level of celebrity using their public platform to sell their personal products on false promises and pseudoscience,” Erik Altieri, executive director of NORML, told Marijuana Moment.
According to reporting from The Hill, this continued misuse of CBD’s abilities hasn’t slowed down in recent weeks.
A Portland, Oregon CBD shop was recently cited for its misleading claims, just another in a long list of such instances.
Still, there’s more to the story on CBD and COVID-19.
Israel’s Stero Biotechs announced it would launch a new small-scale study on April 20. The CBD company is collaborating with the Rabin Medical Center Golda HaSharon Campus to conduct research on whether CBD can help as part of a wider treatment on COVID recovery.
According to High Times, Stero Biotechs has spent the last three years since its founding researching CBD in clinical settings to better understand its medical and wellness benefits.
A second Israeli study is being pursued by InnoCan Pharma and Tel Aviv University, according to Benzinga. [2]
In the context of COVID-19, speed and agility are of the essence for researchers, and this new clinical trial starts immediately on 10 patients at the Tel Aviv campus.
“Hospitalized COVID-19 patients are mostly being treated with steroids and our study is planned to demonstrate the benefit of a combined solution with Steroid treatments,” Stero CEO David Bassa told High Times. “We are hopeful that this study will lead to faster benefit for the growing number of COVID-19 patients in Israel and around the world.” [1]
We should all be excited to see positive results from this study and others like it, but this new research is only to find out whether CBD has promise as a treatment supplement.
Currently, no studies are being done to find whether CBD alone can treat, cure or prevent COVID-19. Still, simply leaving the story with outright fraudsters who claim CBD can cure COVID also seems unjust.
Sources
[2] https://www.nothingbuthemp.net/post/cbd-isn-t-a-covid-19-cure-but-does-that-mean-it-can-t-help
