A Johnson City, Tenn.-based physician and treatment clinic must pay $100,000 to resolve allegations they violated the Opioid Addiction Recovery Fraud Prevention Act of 2018 and the FTC Act, the Justice Department said March 22.
Dalal Akoury, MD, and AWAREmed Wholistic Urgent Care allegedly made misleading advertising claims about the clinic's treatments for substance use disorder, cancer, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, among other illnesses.
From at least 2018 to June 2022, the defendants allegedly claimed that virtually every patient at any stage of illness improved after visiting the clinic. This included claiming the remission of illnesses considered to be incurable.
These claims were "misleading and unlawful because they were not supported by competent and reliable scientific evidence," the Justice Department said in a news release.