A “life extension” company is partnering with a QAnon YouTuber to sell supposed coronavirus “defense” supplements

Written by Eric Hananoki

Published

Updated

C60Complete FB image

A screenshot from a video promotion by Sarah Westall for C60Complete. 

Live Longer Labs, a self-described “life extension” company, has been promoting a line of carbon 60 supplements as a coronavirus “defense” and a way to “significantly” reduce your chance of getting infected. The company is being helped by Sarah Westall, a YouTube conspiracy theorist with over 100,000 subscribers who has been advertising the product as a way to “protect yourself from coronavirus” and “a full-blown solution.” 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that “there is currently no vaccine to prevent coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The best way to prevent illness is to avoid being exposed to this virus.” The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have sent warning letters to companies that have advertised without FDA approval or authorization products which claim to “mitigate, prevent, treat, diagnose, or cure COVID-19 in people.” (One letter went to Bioactive C60 / FullerLifeC60, which sells a carbon 60 supplement.) 

Live Longer Labs is a “life extension research” company producing a carbon 60 line of products called C60Complete, which claims to be “the only product that combines Carbon 60 + Curcumin in Black Seed Oil.” Its website promotes its C60 products by claiming that “living 150-200 years is a reality!” (Carbon 60 is a “form of carbon that is made up of 60 atoms and shaped like 'a hollow soccer ball.'”)

The company runs the website C60Complete.com, which is targeted at people searching for a coronavirus cure. The following words were inputted into the site's HMTL for its meta description tag, which is used by website creators to describe the page’s content for search engines like Google: “coronavirus cure prevention, Wuhon China, coronavirus vaccination, patent-pending coronavirus prevention, viral defense, c60 curcumin inhalant, C60Complete Curcumin Black Seed Oil capsules, corona beer.” Its website appears on Google’s search results as follows: 

C60Complete Google result

It also touts its C60 products on Facebook with the hashtags "#Coronavirus" and "#viraldefense." (Update 5/4/20: Those hashtags have been removed from the linked posts; an archive of those posts can be viewed here, here, and here.)

Live Longer Labs’ products have been heavily promoted by self-described “journalist” Sarah Westall and toxicologist Joe Nieusma, who are both financially connected to the company. 

Westall is a conspiracy theorist and entrepreneur who hosts the program Business Game Changers. She also runs a conspiracy theory-oriented YouTube channel which has over 100K subscribers. She has frequently made videos about QAnon, a violence-linked conspiracy theory which essentially claims that President Donald Trump is secretly working behind the scenes to take down the purported “deep state,” a supposed cabal of high-ranking officials who are operating pedophile rings. 

Nieusma, meanwhile, runs Superior Toxicology & Wellness, a company that partners with Live Longer Labs and the online store Pure Bella Vita, which distributes Live Longer Labs’ products. He has appeared on various podcasts, including Westall’s Business Game Changers, as a purported health expert about the coronavirus. 

Westall promotes and helps sell C60Complete on her website and YouTube channel. A product description on her site claims that studies show that “the gel cap ingredients specifically fight viruses, including Coronavirus and SARS.” It adds that “The US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health has 28,796+ Novel Treatments!” and lists coronavirus. (Westall’s website has a promo code specific to her for readers.) C60Complete.com, which Westall links to and contains a landing page for Westall followers, also includes similar language about its product and the coronavirus.

An advertisement banner for C60Complete on Westall’s site also states: “Protect yourself from Coronavirus, colds and flu’s!” 

Sarah Westall advertisement for C60Complete

Westall and Nieusma have specifically touted C60Complete as a coronavirus preventative and treatment: 

  • On February 12, Nieusma’s Superior Toxicology & Wellness posted on Facebook: “Get protected from coronavirus infection and many others” and then linked to C60Complete.com. Live Longer Labs’ Facebook page responded: “Exactly. Thank you Dr. Joe! Team C60live.” 

  • Nieusma starred in a March 10 ad for Live Longer Labs distributor Pure Bella Vita in which he said: “By now you’ve heard of the coronavirus. And you must be asking yourself: ‘Am I safe from infection?’ … You need to learn more about C60Complete from Live Longer Labs at the link below so that you can maximize your chance of avoiding infection.” 

  • Nieusma promoted C60Complete again in a March 10 video ("24 Defense From the Corona Virus”) sponsored by Live Longer Labs and Pure Bella Vita.

JOE NIEUSMA (SUPERIOR TOXICOLOGY AND WELLNESS): If you are taking a regular dose of C60Complete from Live Longer Labs, your chance of initial coronavirus infection is even more significantly reduced than the general population. If somebody that’s on C60 and somebody that’s not on C60 has the same exposure, the one person that’s on C60 is going to have a much better chance to avoid infection because of the direct effects on the virus, because of the strengthening of the immune system, and because of the absolute state of health that C60 promotes in individuals. And those healthy individuals are able to fight off those common viruses. Coronavirus is the buzzword right now, but it also helps against flu, and common cold, and hepatitis, and HIV, and even Ebola. 

  • Westall posted a March 19 video about “the real solutions that exist to fully solve the coronavirus crisis without the need of vaccines and other costly pharmaceutical programs.” During that video, Westall said that “we have a full-blown solution here. … We have things that people can accept mainstream right now” and referred to C60 as a “preventative.” Westall also claimed during the segment that she’s not making money on the C60 inhaler and “nobody’s making any money.” 

  • Nieusma said in a March 20 interview that “in the face of the coronavirus, the C60Complete is one of the best things you can do.” 

  • During a March 27 appearance on a podcast, Nieusma discussed COVID-19 and stated: “I push one supplement on the face of this Earth and it’s called C60Complete and that -- if you get on C60Complete, you’re going to give your body the best chance to avoid this infection than you possibly could. ”

  • Westall made a promotion for C60Complete which appears on many of her YouTube videos. It states, in part: “With the COVID-19 virus crisis and the number of casualties with the flu, if you have not been looking at C60 as a means to significantly improve your immunities by now, you should be.” 

During a February 23 video, Live Longer Labs founder Max Champie and Live Longer Labs scientist Phil Catalano portrayed C60Complete as a coronavirus “solution” by relaying a conversion with “Dr. Joe” Nieusma about his product and the coronavirus, stating: 

MAX CHAMPIE: Dr. Joe talked to me, him and Dr. Loretta and we had some other people on a call, and he said, “What inspired you to do this?” I said, “We started this about eight months ago, nine months ago.” And he said, “What inspired it?” And I said, “I don't know. I was looking at research and I figured” -- and he goes, “It's as if you forecasted a great” --

PHIL CATALANO: Solution.

CHAMPIE: “Solution to the coming problem.” And --

CATALANO: Not knowing at all that the coronavirus would -- 

CHAMPIE: Yeah, there was no mention of a coronavirus --

CATALANO: Or any virus. 

Media Matters has documented numerous health scams and grifts related to the coronavirus.