An impostor page of the Philippine Orthopedic Center has posted a video of a licensed orthopedic surgeon endorsing a supposed remedy for joint pain. This is fake.
Published on Facebook (FB) on Feb. 21, the 23-minute video continues to make rounds as it shows Dr. Rosalyn Flores supposedly saying:
“Sigurado akong narinig mo na ang pamamaraang ito dahil nakatulong na ito sa mahigit tatlong milyong pasyenteng may pananakit ng kasukasuan na tuluyang gumaling sa loob lamang ng tatlong linggo kahit nasa bahay lang sila… [I]bubunyag ko sa iyo ang isang gamot na ayaw ipaalam ng mga botika dahil kapag ginamit mo ito, maaari silang mawalan ng hanggang pitumpung porsyento ng kita mula sa pagbebenta ng kanilang mga produkto.”
(I’m sure you’ve heard of this method because it cured almost three million patients with joint pain within three weeks while staying at home… I’m sharing with you a medicine that pharmacies don’t want you to know because it will make them lose up to 70% in product sales.)
The name of the medicine was not mentioned in the digitally-altered video, but a link provided in the caption leads readers to a website selling a product named “Bee Venom Medix.” The URL of the web page uses the orthopedic center’s name.
Both video and web page claim the medicine is approved by the Department of Health and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Seniors would also be entitled to a 70% discount supposedly granted by the Philippine Orthopedic Center and the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation.
Bee Venom Medix is not registered with the FDA. This is another case of a fake ad from a page that impersonates a government agency and uses deepfake videos of influential people to scam the public.
The manipulated clip was taken from an interview posted by radio broadcaster Marou Pahati Sarne on TikTok in July 2023.
Artificial intelligence (AI) was used to replicate her voice and sync her mouth to make it look like she was talking about the effectiveness of the fake medicine in curing gout and osteoarthritis.
Upon running the video in the AI detection tool Hive Moderation, it showed that it is likely to contain deepfake content, with an aggregate score of 99.9%.
The FB page and website are not the official online channels of the Philippine Orthopedic Center. There is also no official announcement from the concerned government agencies regarding the medicine and the 70% senior citizen discount.
Uploaded by FB page Philippine Orthopedic Center 24h News (created Feb. 11, 2025) which is being managed from Vietnam, the video garnered over 5.5 million views, 37,400 reactions, 4,500 comments and 2,400 shares.
