It identifies consumer protection strategies and interventions formulated during the 2020 pandemic. This article notes the eruption of quackery during the 1889–1892 Russian Flu and the 1918–1920 Spanish Flu and the emergence during 2020 of spurious claims during the COVID-19 pandemic. In turn such vulnerability creates predatory opportunities for the unscrupulous. They can also lead people to give credence to simplistic and unscientific misrepresentations about medications and devices which are claimed to prevent, treat or cure disease. They can render people vulnerable to engage in implausible conspiracy theories about the causes of illness and governmental responses to it.

Such conditions, even when subclinical, tend to be a product of personal and predispositional factors, as well as shared cultural influences, including religious, literary, film, and gaming, all of which can lead to emotional and less than rational responses. Fear, anxiety and even paranoia can proliferate during a pandemic.

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