Herschel Walker didn’t just hawk COVID-19 spray; he’s spent decades touting unproven health products
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In addition to his “dry mist” COVID-19 spray, Georgia GOP Senate candidate Herschel Walker has had other health products he’s promoted over the years. The problem is, the science-based health community—and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)—have doubts about their efficacy.
The Daily Beast found an August 2020 interview in which Walker told right-wing talk show host Glenn Beck about the new FDA-approved “spray” that kills COVID on contact.
“I probably shouldn’t tell you,” Walker says. “Do you know right now, I have something that [you can bring] into a building, that will clean you of COVID, as you walk through this, this dry mist?”
But the COVID-curing spray isn’t the only product the former Heisman Trophy winner has touted. There’s also Aloe-Lu-Ya, an aloe vera-based health drink launched via Walmart in 1999, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. It was deemed a “commercial failure,” as reported in an SEC filing.
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AS reported by the AJC, when Aloe-Lu-Ya failed, Walker rebranded through another company with a plant extract drink called Sunutra. This time the claims were that the “phytonutrients” in the drink could ward off a slew of diseases, “including cancer, heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke, urinary tract infections and more,” the SEC filing reads.
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The company was also forced to admit to the SEC that these “beliefs” were “not supported by medical evidence generally accepted by the medical community.”
Maureen Meister, a registered dietician and lab researcher at Georgia State University, told the AJC: “It certainly isn’t going to prevent disease. … Certainly, it can slow it, but it won’t be a magic pill.”
In 2014, Walker partnered with multi-level marketing-based company Livio International as a spokesperson for an anti-aging creme, AJC reports.
Four years later, Walker was hawking Novagen, a testosterone-building supplement to help “push back time against time” in the “locker room,” the “boardroom,” or “even the bedroom.”
Then there’s the latest COVID-19 spray.
“When you leave—it will kill the virus as you leave, this here product,” Walker told Beck, adding that he has a second unspecified miracle product, a “spray” possibly indicated for use after the dry mist treatment.
“They don’t want to talk about that. They don’t want to hear about that,” Walker says. “And I’m serious.”
The two-time Pro Bowl champion running back refused to say whether or not he’s been vaccinated or boosted, but of course, he continues to poll high among Republicans.
According to an April 7 The Hill/Emerson College poll, Walker is leading Sen. Raphael Warnock 49% to 45%.
Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB) has reported that Walker’s personal financial disclosures continue to be murky.
Walker’s net worth is between $29 million and $65 million, GPB reports. And his income from the end of 2020 to the end of 2021 was reportedly $4 million.
One example of Walker’s possibly opaque reporting comes from Stephen Spaulding, a senior adviser at Common Cause, a government watchdog organization.
“According to this candidate’s financial disclosure form, no person or entity paid more than $5,000 for any services provided by him—at the same time, he disclosed an interest in an LLC valued at more than $25 million and that provides ‘business consulting and professional services,’” Spaulding told GPB. “This may raise questions for voters trying to screen for conflicts of interest who want to know more about who got what from the consulting and professional consulting firm that bears his name and pays him millions in shareholder income.”