Aspire Health Science: The CBD Company the FTC Found Claiming Its Products Treated Cancer, COVID, and Autism

Aspire Health Science LLC, a Florida-based company that sold cannabidiol products under the brand name CBD Health Collection, faced Federal Trade Commission charges alleging the company marketed its products with claims that they could treat or cure cancer, COVID-19, autism, Alzheimer's disease, and chronic pain — therapeutic claims backed by no credible scientific evidence that exploited terminally and seriously ill patients and their families searching for effective treatment options outside conventional medicine.DOCUMENTED

The FTC's case against Aspire Health Science was part of a broader enforcement campaign the agency conducted jointly with the Food and Drug Administration targeting companies making unsupported disease treatment claims for CBD and hemp-derived products — a market that expanded rapidly following the 2018 Farm Bill's legalization of hemp cultivation and that has been accompanied by a wave of deceptive health claims that regulators have struggled to address comprehensively given the market's scale.

The CBD Health Claims Landscape

The rapid growth of the cannabidiol market following the Farm Bill's hemp legalization created a Wild West advertising environment in which companies made claims for CBD products ranging from scientifically supportable assertions about general wellness to grossly false representations about the treatment of serious diseases. CBD products are regulated as dietary supplements when sold for general wellness purposes and are subject to the same dietary supplement rules that apply to vitamins and botanicals — including the prohibition on disease claims without drug approval. Many companies entering the market ignored these constraints, making the type of specific disease treatment claims that are legally reserved for approved pharmaceuticals.REVIEWED

The FTC and FDA's joint enforcement initiative against CBD health claims targeted the most egregious end of this spectrum — companies making claims that their products could treat serious diseases for which no form of CBD has been approved by the FDA as a drug. These claims are particularly harmful because they target populations — cancer patients, parents of children with autism, patients with neurodegenerative diseases — who are often desperate for effective treatment options and may be susceptible to claims that play on that desperation with false promises of relief or cure.DOCUMENTED

The Cancer and COVID Claims

The specific disease claims in Aspire Health Science's marketing — that its CBD products treated cancer and COVID-19 — represent the most direct harm to consumers in the company's advertising record. A cancer patient who purchases a CBD product believing it will treat their cancer may delay or forgo proven cancer treatments, spending time they do not have on an ineffective intervention rather than pursuing therapies that, while imperfect, offer a meaningful probability of extending life or reducing suffering. The FTC's harm analysis in cancer treatment fraud cases specifically accounts for this opportunity cost — the effective treatments patients did not pursue because they spent their resources, time, and hope on the fraudulent alternative.REVIEWED

COVID-19 treatment claims made during the public health emergency attracted both FTC and FDA enforcement attention because the volume and urgency of public demand for effective treatment created conditions where deceptive claims could reach enormous numbers of vulnerable consumers. The agencies' joint warning letter programs and enforcement actions against COVID treatment claims — including against CBD products making COVID treatment representations — were among the more voluminous enforcement initiatives either agency conducted during the 2020 to 2022 period.

Telling a cancer patient your CBD product can treat their cancer is not optimistic marketing. It is fraud that can cost them the time they needed to pursue a treatment that might actually have helped.

What the FTC Required

The FTC's enforcement action against Aspire Health Science required the company to immediately cease making the identified disease claims, to destroy marketing materials containing those claims, and to implement a compliance program ensuring that future health claims are supported by the competent and reliable scientific evidence the FTC requires before health benefit representations may be made to consumers. The settlement included monetary provisions requiring Aspire Health Science to pay into a consumer redress fund, though the practical recovery for individual consumers who purchased CBD products based on false cancer or COVID treatment claims is typically modest relative to the total harm.DOCUMENTED

For consumers, the Aspire Health Science case offers a reminder that CBD products — despite the extensive health benefit marketing that characterizes much of the CBD market — are not approved drugs and have not been demonstrated to treat the serious conditions that many CBD marketers claim. The only CBD drug approved by the FDA for any medical use is Epidiolex, a pharmaceutical-grade product approved for specific pediatric seizure conditions through a rigorous clinical trial and regulatory approval process. CBD products sold outside that approval framework, marketed for any disease treatment purpose, are making claims that go beyond what the evidence and the law support — regardless of how confident the marketing sounds.

How Patients Can Evaluate Cancer Treatment Claims

Patients and families evaluating alternative or integrative cancer treatment clinics can apply a structured set of questions to assess the credibility of the outcome claims they encounter in marketing. First, they should ask for the specific published clinical studies supporting the claimed survival rates or therapeutic effects — not testimonials, not case reports, but peer-reviewed studies conducted by researchers independent of the clinic, published in journals with scientific credibility, showing statistically significant effects in populations similar to the patient's diagnosis and stage. Second, they should ask whether the clinic is enrolled in any clinical trials through the National Cancer Institute or other accredited research institutions — legitimate clinical research programs that test novel treatments do so under protocols reviewed by institutional review boards, with outcome data that is publicly reported. Third, they should consult with their treating oncologist or with a second opinion from an academic cancer center before committing resources to treatments outside conventional medicine — not because all integrative approaches are fraudulent, but because the oncologist can help assess whether specific claims reflect legitimate emerging science or unsupported marketing. The FTC's enforcement against Aspire Health Science and similar companies removes some of the most egregious false claims from the market, but it cannot protect patients from all deceptive cancer treatment marketing — patient education and clinical consultation remain the most effective individual-level defenses against this category of fraud.

Have documents relevant to this story? Reach us through our tips channel.