Tom Paladino, a quack who has amassed over 120,000 Facebook followers, has been falsely claiming to potential customers that he can prevent numerous health problems, including cancer. Paladino has recently shifted his grift to the coronavirus by telling people that he can easily “break apart,” “eradicate,” and “destroy” the virus in people if they sign up for his “healing” sessions. 

Paladino is the CEO of the Florida-based company The Creative Strength. His website claims that he can use Scalar Light to heal people by supposedly having their pathogens “transmuted.”  It specifically claims his treatment can supposedly prevent cancer and eradicate Ebola and HIV. His website also claims that Scalar Light can lead to increased telepathy. 

Scalar Light is currently running advertisements on Facebook, with link preview text claiming it is “capable of disassembling all types of pathogens,” including “virus.”

According to his website, Paladino’s process “works like this: You purchase a 30 day scalar session here and you will be sent instructions to submit your photograph. When your photograph is accepted, Tom will broadcast the 3 protocols of the standard scalar energy treatment daily for 30 days. On the very first day, all pathogens that you had will be disassembled.” While prices vary, a standard session of Scalar Light costs $175 for one month per person or pet (he has been offering free trials to get people in the door).

Scalar Light’s Facebook page posted the following image purporting to explain how the supposed treatment works: 

Paladino has recently promoted his healing scam by telling people that he has the ability to treat, cure or prevent the coronavirus. 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.”

He wrote a February 7 article claiming that “our research shows that scalar energy may be effective in the treatment of the coronavirus. A Scalar Light Pathogenic Cleanse can be administered to disassemble and eradicate the novel coronavirus.” 

He included the purported testimony of “a woman from the United States” who he said “traveled to Europe in February 2020 in order to attend the Milan Fashion Week. While on vacation she was infected with the COVID-19, coronavirus. During her entire European vacation, she effectively received the Scalar Light Pathogenic Cleanse.” He then wrote “that this suspected case of COVID-19, coronavirus has been disassembled and eradicated from her body by way of the Scalar Light Pathogenic Cleanse. Scalar light is capable of disassembling and eradicating any virus from the human body.” 

That article is no longer online. His website also previously contained the since-removed notice: “The Scalar Light Pathogenic Cleanse will be administered twice a day @ 9:00 AM, EST and 6:00 PM, EST in response to the COVID-19 virus pandemic.” 

He posted a Facebook message in April stating that “at this time of high censorship across all social platforms, we ask that you refrain from using any words on this page regarding our current health plight.” 

Los Angeles Times business columnist David Lazarus wrote an April 10 column about Paladino when discussing how the coronavirus pandemic has brought out dubious cures and interviewed someone who had become convinced that Paladino could cure COVID-19. 

Paladino has repeatedly appeared on podcasts and radio shows and touted Scalar Light as a way to treat, cure, or prevent the coronavirus. Here are five examples: 

Paladino says he can “negate and destroy the coronavirus.” 

Paladino appeared on the March 11 edition of The Matter of the Heart and said that he believes he has “a remedy” for the coronavirus. He stated that he has “many photographs of the coronavirus, and when I place those photographs in my instrument, then my instrument is looking at the molecular integrity, the molecular geometry, if you will, of the coronavirus. And with that information, I'm able to send information, instructions into the body, thereby negating those molecular bonds. So a photograph of the coronavirus allows my instrument to interpret the molecular bonds of the coronavirus and then subsequently negate and destroy the coronavirus.” 

Paladino claimed that he can “easily dissemble, eradicate viruses such as the coronavirus.”

Paladino and the woman who says she traveled to Italy for the Milan Fashion Week appeared on the March 19 edition of Making Life Brighter with Winifred Adams. Paladino said he will “go on record by saying scalar will easily dissemble, eradicate viruses such as the coronavirus.” He later stated that he goes “on record” to claim that he’s “able to destroy, break apart, the HIV virus.”

Paladino claimed that his “process destroyed, broke apart, the COVID virus.”

During a March 20 appearance on Straight Talk for the Soul, Paladino repeated the story of the alleged coronavirus recovery in Italy and said that “she never developed full symptomatology because the Scalar Light process destroyed, broke apart, the COVID virus.” He later stated that he has “the solution for the COVID virus” and he’s been “able to calibrate my instrument to destroy the COVID virus and we're doing that. We can break apart the COVID virus. And as a testimony to that, today, on any given day, I have 5,000 to 7,000 clients on any given day.” 

Paladino claimed that he’s treated people “who have been identified as carriers of the coronavirus” and they’re now “negative.” 

During a March 31 appearance on Natural Choice Network, Paladino claimed that he has administered his treatment to “some people who have been identified as carriers of the coronavirus. And after we began our light therapy, our light sessions, a subsequent follow-up polymerase chain reaction test shows that they have no viral load, that they're negative for the coronavirus, again after being ... exposed to it, or at least in a compromising living situation or workplace situation.” He later said that he’s now “working with over 10,000 people on a daily basis and not one of our clients has had any severe symptomatology of COVID-19.”  

Paladino: “I do believe we can shatter, we can fragment, the COVID-19 virus.” 

During an April 2 appearance on The Loretta Brown Show, Paladino said: “I do believe we can shatter, we can fragment, the COVID-19 virus. … We’re probably going to be able to shatter, to fragment, the COVID-19 virus.” 

Media Matters has been documenting personalities and outlets that have been profiteering from coronavirus health scams and grifts.