It would be instructive to sit down across a table from Anthony Fowler, the ex-boxer who is never short of words on social media, and ask him why he is suggesting his CBD oil products are a superior alternative to chemotherapy and an answer to autism.
Daily Mail Sport has asked him to speak to us on multiple occasions and, in the absence of any response, reported on his claims about his Supreme CBD firm without any personal explanation from him. Fowler generally replies with foul-mouthed abuse to those who call out the medical claims he makes for his Supreme CBD ‘gummies’ and ‘oils’.
But other than sending lawyers’ letters, he has failed to engage with our reporting, making no comment on it and blocking us on his social platforms. Which makes very little difference, since a spare email is all that is needed to re-access his Instagram account.
It was there that Fowler has taken a significant new step by declaring plans for a new product range for autistic children, seemingly involving a treatment which – as our reporting has detailed – is described by the NHS as ‘fake’ and potentially ‘harmful’.
Fowler, 34, who represented Team GB at the 2016 Olympics, posted a video of himself at home with his four-year-old autistic son, Luca, in which he described how he was trying to help his son ‘get rid of his yeast overgrowth, get rid of his parasites (and) any heavy metals in his body’. He said: ‘I’m actually bringing out a whole new range of stuff just to help kids like Luca – to help them all.’
A mother he had met ‘at the play centre’ was trying such a ‘metal detox’, he said but it was ‘a really weak quality one’. His own ‘seven-step program’ which ‘he’d had someone working really hard on’ was the answer, he declared.
Anthony Fowler has been promoting bizarre and dangerous claims to his social media followers
The autism ‘treatment’ called ‘chelation’, which removes metals from the body and which Fowler has promoted on Instagram, is seemingly based on the dangerous claim that children with the neurological condition have ‘hidden’ metal toxicity
Daily Mail Sport has previously warned that the autism ‘treatment’ called ‘chelation’, which removes metals from the body and which Fowler first started promoting on Instagram as a child treatment two months ago, is seemingly based on the dangerous claim that children with the neurological condition have ‘hidden’ metal toxicity, and that mercury in particular can cause it.
Multiple studies show that it can cause kidney and liver damage, heart failure and seizures. It caused the death of a five-year-old British boy in 2005, after he had been brought to Pennsylvania for treatment for autism. Multiple bodies, including the World Health Organisation (WHO), warn against this treatment. In his posts, Fowler does not call his own ‘metals removal’ treatment ‘chelation’.
The Advertising Standards Agency (ASA), which has reprimanded Fowler and his Liverpool-based company three times in the past two years, states that companies like his may not claim their products can ‘prevent, treat or cure disease and illness’.
But in another recent Instagram promotional clip, Fowler appeared to be in danger of doing so when touting his new seven-step ‘parasite and heavy metal detox’ programme – which ‘takes a few weeks but needs to be done daily’. He said of it: ‘We need to protect the liver. If your liver is working to full capacity, you’re not going to get cancer.’
The notion of a parasite and ‘heavy metal’ detox having medical benefits is viewed by the WHO and others as misleading and harmful.
‘We have an organ called the liver, its role is to detox us,’ one expert in the homeopathic medicine tells Daily Mail Sport. ‘Most detox routines simply make people feel sick and miserable and cannot possibly have the intelligence and nuance that our liver has.’
Despite another concerning episode of the boxer-turned-entrepreneur’s medical claims for his products, the organisation with the power to properly investigate – Liverpool City Council Trading Standards – has seemingly no interest in doing so.
The City Council initially suggested to us that this might be an issue for Trading Standards in the London borough where Supreme CBD has a registered office. The Council has since not responded to us on the matter.
Fowler has suggested his CBD oil products are a superior alternative to chemotherapy and an answer to autism
The former boxer, who represented Team GB at the 2016 Olympics, has not engaged with our reporting on his Supreme CBD company
The legislation is certainly there. The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 state that claims a product can prevent, treat, or cure a disease without scientific evidence are considered misleading practices.
The regulations prohibit claims that may cause the average consumer to make a transactional decision they otherwise wouldn’t.
But Liverpool Trading Standards do not appear to consider this a priority for their pitifully thin resources. A Which? report in February found that the city’s trading standards team had about 5.5 full‑time equivalent staff – which is around 1.11 staff per 100,000 residents – making it among the lowest‑resourced services in England.
This means Fowler appears free to post his disputed claims with impunity on social media, through platforms on which he by no means confines himself to his medical assertions.
It has been widely reported that in July last year, he contributed to online misinformation which stoked race riots after the murders of three young girls at a Southport dance class, by claiming the attacker was ‘a fella from Syria’. The post, which reportedly gained four million views, is no longer viewable.
Nearly all of the retired footballers who have pushed Fowler’s products – Matt Le Tissier, Paul Merson, John Aldridge, Emile Heskey and Mark Crossley – appear impervious to the increasingly concerning claims.
Paul Merson has made a paid recent promotional visit to Fowler’s warehouse, to stock up on his goods – and has posted about the trips, including his personal promotional code
Former England and Liverpool striker Emile Heskey is also among the ex-pros promoting Fowler’s products
Aldridge and Merson have both paid recent promotional visits to Fowler’s warehouse, to stock up on his goods – each posting about their trips with posts which include their personal promotional codes.
When Merson was asked on Twitter recently if he was gaining financially from his promotional code, he replied: ‘No. It doesn’t affect me. I’m just trying to help you all.’
The exception is Chris Kirkland, who promotes about a number of important causes on Twitter/X. The former Liverpool goalkeeper, an enthusiastic ‘ambassador’ for the firm in the past, has not tweeted about Supreme CBD products since November 13. His only Twitter reference to Fowler came on November 21, when he shared a tweet in which the ex-boxer was trying to sell a second-hand Porsche car for £35,000.
Fowler, via his lawyers, was asked for comment on the claims he is making about his ‘parasite’ and ‘heavy metals’ removal programme, but there was no response.