After taking the medicine for 3 months, the blood sugar not only did not "reverse", but rose.
Xie He (pseudonym), a resident of Changsha, Hunan Province, told the "Rule of Law Daily" reporter that because the merchant advertised that the drug he sold had a "miraculous effect on lowering blood sugar", he recently bought a hypoglycemic product called "100-day reverse sugar miracle drug" at a high price on the Internet. "The so-called 'miracle drug' is just a routine for merchants to fool consumers into buying goods."
Xie He's experience is not unique. The reporter's recent investigation found that some e-commerce platforms frequently appear in the medical area and social platforms of "miracle medicine" advertisements, from weight loss to regulate immunity, from fatigue relief to sleep improvement, some businesses exaggerate the treatment effect, many people, especially the elderly, listen to the merchants to buy the so-called "miracle drug", at least lose money, and at worst delay treatment.
Not long ago, the State Administration for Market Regulation reported the data on the illegal advertising cases of "miracle medicine" and "miracle doctor" last year: In 2023, the national market supervision department will investigate and deal with a total of 9,572 cases of illegal advertising of "miracle doctor" and "miracle medicine", and fined 125 million yuan.
The interviewed experts pointed out that in recent years, there has been a new trend of communication in the advertising of "miracle doctor" and "miracle medicine", which has expanded from the original traditional media communication to e-commerce platforms, social platforms, and short video platforms, with more diverse communication methods, a wider audience, and greater difficulty in supervision; It is necessary to further strengthen the monitoring technology, consolidate the main responsibility of the platform, and ensure the safety of drug use by the public.
Advertising is overwhelmed
Wanton exaggeration of efficacy
Xie He is 58 years old and suffers from high blood sugar and usually relies on medication to maintain his blood sugar. 3 months ago, she saw that a merchant was selling a "miracle drug" in the live broadcast room of an e-commerce platform, claiming that "according to our conditioning method", it can "help you with 100 days of reverse sugar". "What if there is an effect", with the mentality of trying it out, Xie He paid more than 40,000 yuan to buy 3 courses of medicine.
After receiving the medicine, she took it for a period of time according to the instructions on the instructions, and went to the hospital to test and found that the blood sugar level was higher than before.
"It cost money, but not only did it not work, but it also delayed the treatment time." Xie He bluntly said that he was cheated and is currently looking for an explanation from the businessman.
Liu Tong (pseudonym), a citizen of Beijing, had a similar experience. He had a recurrence of shingles some time ago, and he was tortured both physically and mentally. When I watched a short video, I saw that the anchor was trying his best to shout about his own products: "Absolutely effective, not only can cure shingles, but also save you from neuralgia sequelae." Liu Tong placed an order and bought a bottle, but after applying it for a week, it had no effect.
The reporter saw on a short video platform that some anchors exaggerated publicity in videos and live broadcasts with goods, claiming that their products "cure all diseases"; Some anchors said that "this product can cure any disease you have", and the background content in the live broadcast room is "universal needle, miracle medicine". There are also anchors who claim to be disabled, cancer patients, etc., supplemented by the blessing of "miracle doctors" to win the sympathy and trust of viewers.
On an e-commerce platform, the reporter saw some advertisements for "miracle drugs" with bright fonts such as red, yellow, and blue from time to time and backgrounds highlighting words such as "radical cure", "special drugs" and "special drugs", exaggerating the efficacy of drugs in the details of drug introductions or promotional pictures. There are also merchants who use word games to play side balls, use "artifact" to describe the efficacy of medicine, replace the "effect" of special drugs with "傚", only mention "special effect" without mentioning "medicine", or replace "radical cure" with "eradication" and "broken root", and replace the word "root" with "哏" or "垠", etc.
"To treat stubborn nail fungus, it is recommended to buy a box first", "Japanese special effect, one pill to remove gout", "80-year-old without insomnia, Chinese medicine is symptomatic, and the treatment is in place at one time"...... The reporter noticed that the sales of these goods reached thousands or even tens of thousands, and there were many praises in the comment area.
It is worth noting that there are also some merchants who use imported unique formulas as gimmicks to exaggerate the efficacy, such as Thailand's local version of the five centipede standard cough pill "fast cough suppressant", Thailand's secret recipe gout cream "really works", and the United States imported lung capsules "eat a bunch such as eating a pill, which is 30 times better than quercetin" and so on.
The platform review is not strict
The cost of violating the law is low
Du Xiujun, a lawyer at Beijing Zhongwen Law Firm, has been focusing on the pharmaceutical field all year round. He pointed out that these advertisements for "miracle medicine" are suspected of violating a series of laws and regulations, such as the Advertising Law, the Drug Administration Law, and the Law on the Protection of Consumer Rights and Interests, and may seriously constitute the crime of illegal medical practice as stipulated in the Criminal Law, the crime of producing, selling, and providing counterfeit drugs, and the crime of producing, selling, and providing inferior drugs.
"The subject of the violation is diverse, and medical institutions, pharmaceutical companies, social platforms, etc. are all involved." Du Xiujun said.
In order to intensify the investigation and punishment of illegal advertisers, advertising agents, advertising publishers, and advertising spokespersons, last year the State Administration for Market Regulation issued the "Notice of the State Administration for Market Regulation on Doing a Solid Job in the Investigation and Governance of Outstanding Problems in the Field of Advertising Regulation", organizing and carrying out an iron fist action against "miracle doctors" and "miracle medicines" advertisements; In April this year, the State Administration for Market Regulation issued a work plan to organize and carry out a nationwide special action on advertising supervision in the field of people's livelihood from April to November 2024, further strictly investigate and deal with advertisements for "miracle doctors" and "miracle medicines", severely punish the disguised publication of medical, pharmaceutical, medical device, and health food advertisements in the form of health science popularization, and strictly rectify illegal acts such as impersonating experts or famous doctors in advertisements to carry out propaganda and publishing relevant advertisements without review.
The interviewed experts believe that despite the frequent special actions in recent years, the reason why it is difficult to eradicate all kinds of "miracle drug" advertisements is that the use of illegal drug advertisements to pursue greater interests is a common means for some pharmaceutical companies and drug agents.
"At present, supervision mainly relies on the traditional administrative supervision and law enforcement team, which has a fixed jurisdiction according to the administrative division. However, the network has cross-regional characteristics, and it is difficult to define which administrative division should be responsible for the illegal acts of merchants. In addition, the shortage of manpower and uneven professionalism of the regulatory departments have led to difficulties in obtaining evidence and enforcing the law. Liu Xin, director of the Medical Law and Ethics Research Center of China University of Political Science and Law, said that in addition, in reality, advertising language changes rapidly, there are a large number of relatively hidden, distributed illegal advertisements, and the existing laws and regulations cannot fully cover all forms of advertising, resulting in insufficient legal weapons to combat such illegal advertising.
In Liu Xin's view, the platform review management is not strict, and the complaint handling mechanism is not perfect, which also gives some illegal enterprises the opportunity to exploit loopholes. At present, the network information is complicated, and if the platform cannot be properly controlled, it is very difficult to rely on the supervision of the administrative department alone.
Liu Tong deeply agrees with this. After complaining to the relevant merchants, he found that the platform's punishment for the violations of the settled merchants was not enough, and the handling of complaints was a mere formality, and he also found that some stores did not even have a business license to sell drugs, but they could still operate on the platform, and the sales volume was not low.
The relevant person in charge of the platform told reporters that the platform where it is located has also formulated the release specifications for the medical device industry, requiring the settled merchants not to publish content containing false and exaggerated publicity. In case of violation, the platform has the right to take restrictive measures against the violating products or stores according to the circumstances. The number of stores and products that can be entered on the platform is too large, and there are too many transactions, and if you rely solely on algorithm review, it is inevitable that there will be omissions.
Innovate regulatory approaches
Strengthen qualification review
At present, the punishment for illegal medical advertisements is mainly based on the Advertising Law and the Measures for the Administration of Medical Advertisements and other relevant provisions. Some industry insiders pointed out that the "Measures for the Administration of Medical Advertising" has been revised and implemented since 2007, when medical institutions were mainly state-owned public hospitals, and the form of advertising was mainly traditional media advertising. Today, the relevant regulations have not kept up with the development of medical advertising; It is recommended to speed up the revision of the Measures for the Administration of Medical Advertisements to adapt to the new forms of illegal advertising, and at the same time increase the punishment of illegal advertisements and increase the cost of illegal advertising.
Liu Xin believes that the regulatory authorities need to continue to innovate regulatory methods and update the "advertising slogan prohibition thesaurus" in a timely manner. At present, some supervision is carried out only after someone reports, which is a responsive law enforcement and lacks the motivation and ability to take the initiative. If there is some innovation in the supervision method and the scope of supervision can be known in a timely manner, the grassroots law enforcement departments may do more for illegal advertisements in the field of medicine and health.
"The current laws and regulations have relevant provisions on the joint and several liability of platforms, but they are too vague. In this context, the relevant departments should keep an eye on the local third-party platforms, so that they can strengthen the review and management of the legal qualifications of the settled merchants, strengthen the platform's cooperation obligations in product recalls, risk disposal, and supervision and inspection, such as supporting relevant departments from open data interfaces, etc., and can also make full use of big data and artificial intelligence technology to quickly and efficiently identify, screen, and filter a large amount of advertising information, and strengthen the crackdown on illegal advertisements disseminated on online platforms. Liu Xin said.
He also suggested that scientists should take the initiative to strengthen science popularization for the public, so that pseudoscience has no place to stand, and consider elevating science popularization to the legal obligation of scientists, and at the same time introduce relevant policies or incentives to encourage scientists to carry out more science popularization work.
Du Xiujun proposed that cross-departmental and cross-regional cooperation can be strengthened, network monitoring resources such as network information, industry and information technology, and public security can be integrated, and the review of advertisements in the medical field can be strengthened, and the cost of violations and joint punishment can be increased.
For consumers, improving discernment is crucial. An attending doctor at a tertiary hospital in Beijing told reporters that his department receives dozens of patients who abuse drugs every year, and some patients rush to the hospital in a hurry, using drugs of unknown composition and unknown source, resulting in physical damage; Some patients even listened to the "miracle doctor's" method of separating clothes and needles, and there was a large-scale infection that caused severe disease.
"It is necessary to increase the publicity of rational drug use, popularize medical knowledge to the public, enhance their awareness and awareness of safe drug use, and their ability to identify health advertisements." Said the above-mentioned attending doctor.
Liu Tong also reminded him based on his own experience that whenever he hears words such as "curing all diseases", "one course of treatment in place", "×× people have excellent medical skills", "the success rate is more than 99%", etc., we must keep our eyes open, make dialectical judgments, and do not be gullible.
Source: Rule of Law Daily