Gordon Pedersen’s online image was defined by the stethoscope around his neck and the white lab coat he wore, embroidered with “Dr. Gordon Pedersen,” as he assured YouTube viewers that a solution of “structured silver” could heal all wounds.
Long before 2020, according to the Department of Justice, the Cedar Hills entrepreneur had touted the healing properties of silver and promised it could kill any viruses, bacteria or yeast.
But federal regulators took notice once Pedersen started to claim that certain types of silver — available on his “My Doctor Suggests” website — could “prevent, cure, and treat COVID-19.”
It was all a ruse. Pedersen was never a licensed medical doctor, according to court filings, and he used fake accreditations to sell unregistered and unverified silver treatments for millions of dollars. His claims about their effectiveness required regulatory approval from the Food and Drug Administration, which instead sought an injunction to halt his sales.
“The FDA will continue to help ensure those who place profits above the public health during the COVID-19 pandemic are stopped,” Judy McMeekin, an associate FDA commissioner for regulatory affairs, vowed in April 2020.
Pedersen evaded law enforcement for nearly three years before he was arrested in Utah County in August 2023, according to prosecutors. He pleaded guilty to two fraud charges in March, on the second day of trial, and other charges were dropped.
“This is really serious business,” U.S. District Court Judge David Barlow said Monday before issuing his sentence.
My ‘doctor’ suggests
Sales of silver products on the My Doctor Suggests site “skyrocketed” in the pandemic’s early days, according to the Department of Justice. The site, which sold silver in forms from a solution to lozenges to a gel, made at least $5.4 million in sales from 2018 into 2020, prosecutors said.
Pedersen owned 25% of the company but was its public face, attorneys for the United States said. Pedersen exploited people’s fear of the pandemic, they argued, to enrich himself and My Doctor Suggests.
Before COVID-19 vaccines became available, prosecutors wrote in court filings, Pedersen claimed his “structural alkaline silver” product “resonates, or vibrates, at a frequency that destroys the membrane of the virus, making the virus incapable of attach[ing] to any healthy cell, or to infect you in any way.”
Pedersen had first donned his lab coat and stethoscope to extol the virtues of structural silver online years before the coronavirus arrived in the United States.
YouTube was his primary outlet. His channel has since been deleted, but in guest appearances on other channels, Pedersen sits in his Cedar Hills office framed by a wall of his claimed degrees, awards and research papers, all of which he readily points to to reinforce his expertise.
“This was published using medical research protocols in peer-reviewed journals,” he said as a guest on the “Living a Better Life” podcast in December 2019, pointing at a framed document behind him.
Pedersen wrote two books about the healing properties of structural silver, both of which are still available on Amazon. The newer edition, published in 2014, offers roughly 40 pages of background information on “structured silver” and then an alphabetized list of conditions it can allegedly treat, from anxiety and Alzheimer’s disease to cancer and Crohn’s disease.
Barlow said he took Pedersen’s history of belief in silver into account at Monday’s sentencing hearing. He also considered, per defense attorney Kristen Angelos’ request, that Pedersen sincerely believed in all of his claims — even if he lied about his credentials.
Silver does have antimicrobial properties, according to the National Institute of Health, and has been used to treat some infections.
But Pedersen’s confidence in silver’s healing properties does not negate the harm he could have caused, Barlow said, by prescribing a blanket, unproven remedy to conditions with known treatments and to COVID-19.
“I’ve taken it into account,” Barlow said of Pedersen’s purported sincerity. “That doesn’t mean it’s not dangerous.”
Barlow sentenced Pedersen to three years in prison for mail fraud and selling misbranded drugs “with the intent to defraud and mislead.” Pedersen will also serve two years of supervised probation, Barlow ruled.
The company Pedersen had co-owned, My Doctor Suggests LLC, severed ties with him, pleaded guilty to one count related to false marketing of ingestible silver products, and agreed to issue full refunds to deceived consumers, prosecutors announced in July 2020.
‘I know silver works’
Almost immediately after the warrant for his arrest was issued in 2020, prosecutors said, “Pedersen started vexing the court with sovereign citizen-type filings that were clearly frivolous.”
Pedersen claimed that he is “not any kind of U.S. citizen,” prosecutors said, saying he is instead a “corporate entity” and copyrighted “Living Soul” that the court did not have jurisdiction over, and he remained “on the run” with help from others for three years.
But on Monday, Pedersen, 64, apologized to the court and asked for “mercy.” Still, he remained steadfast in his belief.
“I know silver works,” Pedersen said.
Pedersen’s health has taken a turn for the worse while he has been an inmate in the Salt Lake County Jail, according to court filings and Angelos’ statement to the judge.
He appeared Monday with a bandage covering most of his nose — the result, he said, of what is likely skin cancer. The doctors who removed it, he said, prescribed him Silvadene — a topical antibiotic cream made from silver sulfadiazine.
It’s “the ultimate tragedy,” Pedersen said, “and irony.”
Shannon Sollitt is a Report for America corps member covering business accountability and sustainability for The Salt Lake Tribune. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by clicking here.
