{"id":148198,"date":"2025-06-01T01:12:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-01T01:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/148198\/"},"modified":"2025-06-01T01:12:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-01T01:12:09","slug":"fears-deepfake-adverts-for-medicines-putting-people-at-risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/148198\/","title":{"rendered":"Fears deepfake adverts for medicines putting people at risk"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Rachel Helyer Donaldson of RNZ<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

People with Type 2 diabetes have been warned to be cautious about buying medicine online, after several ads featuring New Zealand doctors selling treatments for the disease were found to be fake.<\/p>\n

The New Zealand Society for the Study of Diabetes said the deepfake videos were created using artificial intelligence with real footage, to make it look like a genuine doctor was speaking, when they were not.<\/p>\n

President Dr Jo McClintock said she knew of at least three doctors whose image and names had been used by the scammers – one in November and two in the last two months – and several patients were thought to have bought the scam supplements.<\/p>\n

“That’s not to say there aren’t more [doctors targeted]. It’s only through people living with diabetes who have reached out, that we’ve been made aware of these social media posts.”<\/p>\n

People should check in with their GP or health professional teams if they were getting messages about medicines that seemed too good to be true, she said.<\/p>\n

The ads were also “very clever”, she added.<\/p>\n

“There are international examples as well, where they’re saying they’re ground-breaking treatments that will cure your diabetes and you don’t need to take your medications anymore.”<\/p>\n

One of the biggest worries was the misinformation being spread, she added.<\/p>\n

“People are are at risk taking unapproved treatments, potentially unsafe supplements and stopping their current prescribed medications.”<\/p>\n

McClintock said anyone who had paid for a product after seeing one of the ads should report it to police.<\/p>\n

Medical advice on social media – staying safe<\/p>\n

Do not stop or change your medication based on social media advice – even if it looks like it is from a New Zealand doctor in a photo or video<\/p>\n

Deepfake videos often make big claims, such as a new “ground-breaking” treatment that “works for everyone.” These are not trustworthy. Check with your doctor or healthcare provider before buying a diabetes or weight loss treatment online<\/p>\n

Type 2 diabetes is different for each person. Treatment should always be personalised, taking into account other health conditions and medications<\/p>\n

Get reliable information from trusted sources, like\u00a0Healthify<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0Diabetes New Zealand<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If you’re unsure about an advert you’ve seen online, check with the trusted sources above. If you are thinking about changing your medication, check with your doctor or diabetes nurse first.<\/p>\n

If you have paid for a product after seeing one of these ads, you can report it to the NZ Police by calling 105, or on\u00a0the police website’s fraud and cybercrime page<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Rachel Helyer Donaldson of RNZ People with Type 2 diabetes have been warned to be cautious about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":148199,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4315],"tags":[105,4326,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-148198","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-medication","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-medication","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114605453980237461","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}