The "Internet celebrity doctor" who has changed its taste: how to manage the "traffic disease"?

With the rise of short videos and live streaming, more and more doctors are starting to share medical knowledge online. Transforming complex medical knowledge into common sense that can be understood and used will help improve people's health literacy.

However, the "Xinhua Viewpoint" reporter's investigation found that some behaviors of disguising doctors, "pseudo-popular science", and selling classes with goods to gain traffic have changed the taste and distorted of medical and health science.

The "Internet celebrity" wearing the doctor's "vest" swept the live broadcast room

On a short video platform, the blogger wore a "white coat" and started to "perform" in a scene similar to a hospital. Bloggers with the title of "male doctors" help play the heroines of patients from time to time, and many people in the comment area say that "doctors are too warm-hearted".

However, the reporter found that the blogger did not obtain the doctor's identity certification, and used the "doctor" character to create a fictional plot, but in fact, he was "setting up a stage" to sell goods, recommending milk, vitamins, laundry detergent and other products.

At the same time, there are also many certified doctors engaged in "health science" work that is inconsistent with their specialty, bringing goods for a variety of products. The reporter noticed that there were "gynecologists" who brought goods to men's T-shirts, and "orthopedic surgeons" who brought goods to beauty products.

"There are trillions of microbes living in our guts." On a short video platform, a doctor certified as the "Neurological Rehabilitation Department" of a tertiary hospital in Guangdong talked about the benefits of consuming probiotics. On its homepage, the "neurological rehabilitation" expert brings goods for a certain brand of probiotic freeze-dried powder. The detail page shows that the sales volume of the product with a price of 59.9 yuan has approached 3,000 pieces.

In some live broadcast rooms, there are also some so-called "nutrition experts" who fabricate various titles and promote fake health products.

In May this year, the Intermediate People's Court of Huainan City, Anhui Province, pronounced a second-instance verdict in a fraud case. Chinese In order to sell valuable health care products to the elderly, he fabricated many titles such as "national first-class health care physician" and "national first-class nutritionist", and talked about health preservation in the live broadcast room. When promoting a capsule health care product, Chi Moujun fabricated that the product had the effect of lowering blood lipids and curing diseases, and carried out "brainwashing" sales fraud on the elderly.

According to a platform's newly released medical content governance norms, creators are not allowed to publish false and homogeneous medical content through improper marketing, improper interpretation, or other means. In August this year, the platform imposed indefinite bans and short-term bans on 1,711 related illegal accounts, and processed 37,000 homogeneous videos.

"It's science on the lips, but business is on the back"

Wearing the "vest" of a "doctor", you can get huge economic benefits in popular science. Profitable makes some bloggers lower their bottom line, "talking about popular science, behind it is business".

"The doctor's commission for bringing health care products can reach 30% to 60%." Ms. Wang, who is engaged in the docking of online "talent" resources, revealed to reporters, "Vitamin C and folic acid are the most products, and eating them does not have much impact on people, and they can get considerable commissions." Ms. Wang said.

According to a quotation for an "advertorial" in the field of "health science popularization" on a certain platform obtained by the reporter, the cost of each "advertorial" for "doctor bloggers" with more than 30,000 followers on the platform is 10,000 yuan. "This kind of does not contain 'hanging chains' (direct purchase links), if you want to 'hang chains', sales need to be shared with bloggers." Industry insiders revealed.

The reporter contacted a blogger in the field of medical cosmetology on a certain platform and asked him about the "commission" on the grounds of bringing health care products. "How much you sell, I'll take half of it." The blogger told reporters that the 50% "commission" ratio does not guarantee sales, "sell a bottle, smoke a bottle". In the process of communication, the blogger did not mention the qualifications and efficacy of the health care products to be carried.

On the other hand, the lack of supervision of platforms also leaves room for "counterfeiting" and "drainage".

At present, the platform has different standards for the identity review and certification of doctors. After inquiring about the certification requirements of relevant platforms, the reporter found that some platforms require hospitals to issue on-the-job certificates to verify the true identity of doctors, some platforms only need to provide medical practitioner certificates to obtain certification, and some platforms also certify the identity of pharmacists and nurses.

In addition to the different certification standards, the identity authentication of major platforms mainly stays in the "hard qualifications" of doctors themselves, and they have not reviewed whether their popular science content is "professionally counterparted" with the practice field, and some MCN institutions have also been able to "paste" popular science copywriting with qualifications.

Wang Xifu, deputy chief physician of emergency medicine at Guangzhou First People's Hospital, said that some non-professional doctors brought goods in order to rub off on traffic, which led to the popularity of cross-professional and cross-departmental science popularization. "Some MCN institutions cooperate with doctors in order to 'borrow identity' and use the doctor's qualifications to pass the platform certification, but the daily content of the account is maintained by the operation staff, which is actually 'selling dog meat on the head of a sheep'."

The interviewed experts pointed out that it is often difficult to identify health "pseudo-science" as "rumors", and it is difficult to deter punishment. "Many health topics have room for 'flexible interpretation', and some bloggers deliberately amplify 'extremely low-probability' events in order to attract attention."

In addition, health science resources are readily available. On a second-hand trading platform, the reporter only spent 0.99 yuan to obtain 9,500 copies of "physical health science copy", including "the fastest way to improve immunity", "the fastest way to slim thighs" and other "practical" health science copy.

Rectifying crooked tendencies to curb "pseudo-popular science"

The act of impersonating the identity of a doctor or carrying out "pseudo-science popularization" as a doctor may not only cause harm to the health of ordinary people, but also seriously damage the image of the medical community.

In February 2023, the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) issued measures for the administration of internet advertisements clearly prohibiting the disguised publication of advertisements for medical treatment, medicines, medical devices, health foods, and formula foods for special medical purposes in the form of introducing health and wellness knowledge.

Gao Bing, a lawyer at Shanghai Junyue (Hangzhou) Law Firm, believes that according to the relevant provisions of the Criminal Law and the Physician Law, impersonating a doctor on the platform to promote the sale of health care products or drugs may constitute the crime of fraud or illegal practice of medicine. A medical practitioner may constitute "over-the-scope practice" by diagnosing diseases that are inconsistent with his or her scope of practice online, or promoting drugs that are inconsistent with his or her scope of practice; If it causes serious consequences, it may constitute the crime of "medical malpractice".

The reporter learned from public hospitals in Fujian, Guangdong and other places that in-service doctors need to obtain the authorization of the hospital if they need to open a popular science account with platform identity authentication; In order to prevent brokers, in-service doctors are also prohibited from engaging in all kinds of live streaming work.

Gao Yandong, deputy dean of the Institute of Digital Rule of Law of Zhejiang University, suggested that medical institutions should strengthen the management of medical personnel and certificates in their units, so that medical science popularization can truly play its due social value; The regulatory authorities have strengthened the supervision of false posing and publicity to prevent the social risks caused by misleading patients.

Su Junbin, deputy dean of the School of Journalism and Communication of Xiamen University, suggested that the platform should implement more main responsibilities, adopt technical means to identify "illegal copywriting", intercept and block "pseudo-popular science" content, and maintain the public welfare and rigor of health science popularization.

"Don't apply the symptoms and diagnoses in health science to the world. If you feel unwell, you should go directly to the hospital. A number of health science bloggers suggested that you should try to pay attention to bloggers who have been authenticated by the platform, or watch popular science content verified by authoritative media, and do not easily buy health care drugs promoted by fake "doctors" in videos or live broadcasts. (Reporter Yan Zhihong, Yang Shuxin)