When approached by The Spinoff Jeanette Wilson denied having told participants in an online session that the product ‘lined the lungs’, despite clear evidence to the contrary.

The Covid-19 crisis has sparked misinformation in every corner of the world. In New Zealand, a “psychic healer” whose fixations read like a conspiracy theorist’s crib sheet – 5G, anti-vaxx, lab-created virus – has been recorded advocating the use of a dietary supplement to “line the lungs” to counter the risk of the disease.

During an online workshop last Thursday, Jeanette Wilson endorsed a product called HFI, made by Enzacta, a multilevel marketing company. In a video of the exchange, captured by the US-based Guerrilla Skeptics group, Wilson said: “The virus has to attach to the lungs. The particular Covid attaches to the lungs. And what that product does is it lines the lungs, making it resistant to something attaching. That’s the very best preventative I can recommend.”

In the same video, Wilson, who has separately claimed that her “psychic healing” has cured people of paralysis and cancer, said that the use of ventilators in treating Covid-19 was misguided, and that patients instead “needed antibiotics”.

This, too, is misinformation. Antibiotics only work against bacteria, not viruses.

When called by The Spinoff yesterday for evidence supporting the use of HFI, Wilson denied encouraging its use to prevent Covid.

“I don’t think so. I think you might have got that wrong,” she said.

When it was put to her that she had said it was a “preventative” that “lines the lungs”, Wilson said: “No, I don’t think so. I know a little about what it does. I’ve seen that product used with COPD [chronic obstructive pulmonary disease], not Covid. Maybe that’s what has been misheard.”

In the video, however, Wilson’s comments are clear. Responding to a question from Susan Gerbic of the Guerilla Skeptics about Covid-19, Wilson asserted that “this disease is going to rather miraculously disappear” by the end of the year, owing, she said, to mutations.

“In the meantime it’s about bolstering the immune system. There is a really good product. If you’re worried about yourself, or somebody within the family, there is a product called HFI. It’s produced in America. It’s from a company called Enzacta. It’s the only product worldwide that is known to boost the immune system,” Wilson told the $55-a-head workshop.

“The virus has to attach to the lungs,” she claimed. “The particular Covid attaches to the lungs. And what that product does is it lines the lungs, making it resistant to something attaching. That’s the very best preventative I can recommend.” She later reiterated, again falsely, that it “lines the surface of the lungs so the virus can’t attach”.

Wilson added: “I’ve had to bring it over to New Zealand from the United States. You can buy it directly in the United States. It’s a United States product called HFI. Nobody is talking about it but it’s the best thing I would recommend.”

There is no scientific evidence whatsoever that HFI is effective in treating or preventing COPD or any other disease. On the product’s official website, HFI is described as “a dietary supplement consisting of Humic and Fulvic Acid that is produced by millions of years of microbial decomposition of dead plant matter”. The same page notes: “This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.”

Asked by The Spinoff about the claim that antibiotics should be used against Covid-19, Wilson said, “I’m not a doctor,” adding, “I know there’s a lot of different stuff on the internet at the moment, coming from doctors and specialists, saying it could be treated in different ways, but that’s outside my experience.”

She said the session referred to was a “private group” in which she was “teaching people to connect with their loved ones in the spirit world”.

Asked about any financial interest in Enzacta, Wilson said: “I can tell you I don’t sell a product called HFI. I don’t sell that product. It’s not licensed in New Zealand. If I recommended it to a lady in America it’s up to tell her to go and find that product for herself in America. But that’s all I know.”

She added: “I work with Enzacta in New Zealand sell a product called PXP, which is a purple rice, and there is no link with that with Covid-19, it gives you energy, that’s all that product does.”

Wilson promotes PXP Royale, a “cellular superfood” at her “psychic healing” live shows. She has called it “the most amazing product on the face of the Earth”, and sells jars containing “30 servings” of this “micronized purple rice”, at $148 a pop.

In a separate video about Covid-19 posted by Wilson on her public Facebook page, under the heading “What can we do boost immune system?” she encouraged viewers to use PXP, as well as a “soil-based, broad spectrum anti-viral supplement”, called HFI. “Heaps of this is being shipped to China, and I’m trying to get this over here in New Zealand.”

In the video, posted in March and viewed more than 2,500 times, Wilson added: “You can use it as a preventative or you can keep a jar in the cupboard and then if anybody in the family starts to have symptoms you can introduce it to the diet at that stage.”

She also suggested, wrongly, that “the people most at risk are obviously the younger people, as in babies and children that haven’t got such a robust immune system”.

Earlier in the workshop, Wilson introduced her remarks about the coronavirus with reference to her purported psychic background.

“Although I was spiritually awoken 26 years ago, I was told what was happening on the planet, last May I got a little nudge again to say, ‘right, you’re activated’ … So by December of this year, a lot more is going to be out in the open, a lot more people are going to know exactly what is happening and what’s been behind it.”

That included the revelation that “money is being controlled by very few people. There’s about 300 people that have basically been in charge of the world. And these people are going to be exposed, and their nefarious doings are being exposed as well. And as that happens, it’s not going to be nice but it’s going to be for ultimate good. It’s like the dark is being exposed to the light.”

Wilson said that “something much worse than [the pandemic] was planned to happen, and it’s been thwarted”. She added: “God created this body with an immune system, so I’m not a believer in vaccines. I’m not anti-vaxx, but I am really pro good science, really good science.”

In interview with RNZ last year, Wilson said: “I don’t make any scientific, medical claims for what I do.” She was responding then to a NZ Skeptics campaign urging venues to cancel Wilson’s “psychic surgery” tour.

Wilson, a former bank manager who migrated from Britain to New Zealand, advertises her services as “working with the Entities of Light to bring through healing energy to help others”.

She claims to have cured respiratory illnesses, blindness and paralysis. She also claims to have cured cancer – as a “conduit for God”. As well as selling dietary supplements, touring “psychic healer” shows and offering private sessions, Wilson offers membership of “Jeanette’s Inner Circle” Facebook group for $49.99 a year.

Susan Gerbic, who founded the group Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia, said she had been running “stings” on psychics and their far-fetched claims since 2013. Wilson had been “peripherally on our radar for a while, especially since she’s gotten into this ‘healing’ aspect”, said Gerbic, who is based in California.

“People are so confused, but conspiracy theories are common – you can’t imagine how frightening it is here … So if you have someone who you respect, maybe it’s a celebrity, maybe it’s a psychic healer, and they’re telling you something, you may just do it,” she said.

“I’m not so worried about New Zealanders, because you guys got it down,” said Gerbic. “But she has followers all over the world, especially the UK, and it’s horrible in the UK … This is somebody who has a platform, she’s notable, so when she says something like this – no – we’ve got to call it out.”

Elsewhere in the video, Wilson defends Donald Trump. “He’s now my hero. He’s one very, very smart man, and he’s doing a hell of a lot behind the scenes. He’s seen through [infectious diseases expert and coronavirus taskforce member] Anthony Fauci, he’s sorted out the World Health Organisation, he’s stopping the 5G, he’s stopping mandatory vaccines, all the key things that need to happen, he’s onto it a lot more than most people realise.”

She added of the virus, “my understanding is it was man-made” but “was released by accident”.

In June last year the Liverpool Echo reported that Wilson had told audiences at a show in Chester that a dead surgeon called Dr Augusto de Almeida was “working through her”. She was quoted as saying: “I wear white so that any energies taken off the patient, the recipients of the healing, don’t contaminate my energy fields.”

In a video cited in an extensive North & South article about Jeanette Wilson’s business, published last year, she said: “Imagine being able to open up everybody’s heart centre. We don’t need any more wars. We don’t need any more vaccines. We don’t need any more 5G.”

The Covid crisis has seen screeds of misinformation proliferate. In mid-April, UN secretary-general António Guterres began an address by saying: As the world fights the deadly Covid-19 pandemic – the most challenging crisis we have faced since the second world war – we are also seeing another epidemic, a dangerous epidemic of misinformation. Around the world, people are scared. They want to know what to do and where to turn for advice. This is a time for science and solidarity. Yet, the global ‘misinfo-demic’ is spreading. Harmful health advice and snake-oil solutions are proliferating. Falsehoods are filling the airwaves. Wild conspiracy theories are infecting the internet.”

The US president, Donald Trump, has been criticised for misleading statements around the potential use as a treatment of of hydroxychloroquine, the efficacy of which in relation to Covid-19 is unproven, and bleach, the use of which is unequivocally dangerous. A cult-like “church” has been peddling hazardous, bogus treatments, including in New Zealand. Conspiracy theories around 5G have led people to attack cellphone towers. It was only a matter of time, perhaps, until a “psychic healer” joined the party.