Help stop the deepfake doctors putting patients’ lives at risk

Dr John Cormack, who has been looking into the prevalence of deepfake doctors online, outlines the dangers of misinformation and calls out for help in gathering evidence of such cases

Deepfake scams are popping up everywhere. Once confined to Hollywood actors and political figures, they are now creeping in closer to home. I have been looking into some involving well-known media doctors, such as Dr Hilary Jones and the late Dr Michael Mosley. 

For those who are unaware of what a deepfake is, let me explain. It is a video which shows footage of somebody talking. But then, AI is used to modify the soundtrack and quite literally put words into the subject’s mouth – and these are very often words that the figure on the screen would never dream of using. In the better quality deepfakes, the visuals are edited so that the lip-syncing is good. But the cheapo versions have made little attempt at making the visuals gel with the soundtrack. Scammers only need short snippets of recordings in order to create a video which will convince the uninitiated.

The deepfakes I have seen involving figures from the medical world are advertisements in which patients are told what they want to hear: Jones, Mosley and all the others involved are shown saying that there is now a ‘once-and-for-all cure’ for their diabetes, hypertension or whatever so they can stop their prescribed medication. 

Moreover, these deepfake doctors claim that their medication is doing them more harm than good. It is manufactured by ‘Big Pharma’ which is only interested in ‘Big Profits’ and is prescribed by doctors who have no interest in their patients’ wellbeing – they just want to get rich quick. Both are conspiring to conceal the fact that a cure exists because there is a lot more to be made by putting patients on long-term ineffective medication than there is in a quick fix.

In these advertisements patients are told what they want to hear: Jones, Mosely and co. are shown saying that there is now a ‘once-and-for-all cure’ for their diabetes, hypertension or whatever so they can stop their prescribed medication. Moreover, these AI doctors will tell patients that their prescribed medication that they take is doing them more harm than good.

Stopping prescribed medication can, of course, be very dangerous as the Hongchi Xiao case demonstrates. He is a ‘healer’ who, whilst practicing in Australia, told the parents of a six-year-old boy to stop giving him his insulin – resulting in the boy’s death. He then came to the UK (there being no effective mechanism for stopping these charlatans moving from one jurisdiction to another) and carried on where he left off – encouraging a grandmother to stop her insulin, with the inevitable result. He has been found guilty of gross negligence manslaughter and awaits sentencing.

That is obviously the very extreme end of what deepfake scams can lead to. But there is a more day-to-day impact of such scams that can be seen creeping in and it is not an entirely new phenomenon for us GPs. For as long as we older docs can remember, patients have been coming into the surgery with cuttings from newspapers and mags to show us, many of which are full of bullshit… We know our patients are influenced by what they see, and the deepfake scam is just the latest manifestation of this process. It takes time to disabuse patients from the notion that their diabetes can be cured with a few pills bought online – after all, this is exactly what they want to hear: No more tedious lifestyle changes and no willpower required.

A huge worry is that these deepfake advertisements erode trust between us and our patients. The media docs who are deepfaked are obviously furious that they are being shown handing out advice which could cause patients to run into big trouble. The affected patients’ doctors are not immune either – in most of these ads, not only is Big Pharma to blame, but patients are told that the doctors who have been treating them are not to be trusted either and are just here to make a quick buck! I will point out here that these scam ads are also run in the USA where the accusation of avarice is more believable given that patients are charged for consultations. 

The rule of thumb for online scams (be they financial or medical) is: ‘If they sound too good to be true, they are too good to be true!’ Worryingly, most of these depfake scams are presented with zero evidence of efficacy but literally hundreds of glowing testimonials – such comments can be bought cheaply by the yard. Medics would not be fooled by these as we immediately recognise the jumble of pseudoscience, marketing and outright lies presented as ‘science.’ The very mention of Nobel prize-winners, Harvard or Cambridge professors always rings alarm bells: Why would those who have made major breakthroughs not present their findings in the normal way?; Why would they conceal them from the scientific community?; Why would they choose to market the products themselves online? It is patients – vulnerable and gullible at times – that are the target audience.

There’s not much GPs can do to protect patients other than handing out a list of genuine sources of info (such as the NHS website) as the amount of misinformation online has reached an all time high. But, a TV production company is now following up these scams and would like to find examples of patients who have come to harm as a result of the advice they have received. This is difficult because those involved use social media – so they and their victims fly under the radar.

If you have come across any cases where patients have come to harm please get in touch with me. Needless to say, there is no expectation that confidential patient details will be passed on as this cannot take place without their consent.

Dr John Cormack [email protected]