Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost sent a letter to Twitter, eBay, and Shopify last week asking them to work to prevent the sale of fake vaccine cards on their platforms
Yost joined a coalition of 45 attorneys general aimed at raising awareness about falsified vaccination cards, led by Attorney General Josh Stein of North Carolina and Attorney General Herbert Slatery of Tennessee.
“Fraudulent vaccine cards simply don’t have a place in the marketplace,” Yost said in a statement last week. “Vaccines are more readily available across Ohio than ever before – don’t fall into a deceptive trap when you could get the real thing with less effort.”
The letter — addressed to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, eBay CEO Jamie Iannone and Shopify CEO Tobias Lütke — says that that the attorneys general are “deeply concerned about this use of your platforms to spread false and misleading information regarding COVID vaccines.”
It is also signed by the attorney generals of Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida and Washington, D.C.
“The false and deceptive marketing and sales of fake COVID vaccine cards threatens the health of our communities, slows progress in getting our residents protected from the virus, and area violation of the laws of many states,” the letter said. “Multiple states’ laws provide for injunctive relief, damages, penalties, and other remedies for such conduct.”
The letter calls the CEOs to monitor their platforms, take down ads for fake vaccine cards and record information about who is selling fake cards.
Official vaccination cards are given out with administered vaccines. As of Friday, more than 34 percent of Ohio residents have received at least the first dose of their vaccine, totaling nearly 4 million people, according to data from the Ohio Department of Health.
Read the full letter here.
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Jordyn Pair is a reporter with The Ohio Star. Follow her on Twitter at @JordynPair.
Photo “Vaccine Card” by Jernej Furman. CC BY 2.0.
