"Emirates Today" has monitored the spread of pages, through social networking sites, to fake doctors claiming to discover a treatment for the "Corona" virus, with the aim of attracting a large number of viewers, and increasing the followers on their websites, where a fake doctor, called Dr. Khalil, claimed that he discovered a treatment for the virus By eating secret food mixtures, while another called "Ayman" warned against touching or approaching the "lotus", as it is the source of the virus, demanding that it fight it to cure the virus and eliminate it, and a third thought that "anise" was the best treatment, and that he had a secret mixture of treatment Within three days.
In contrast, Professor of Applied Sociology, Professor of Criminology at the University of Sharjah, Dr. Ahmed Falah Al-Amoush, said that the phenomenon of imaginary doctors on "social media" appears in health crises, and they are considered, according to sociology, as crisis dealers, as the supervisors of these pages read the psychological followers, In order to promote false allegations of the discovery of a cure for the virus, taking advantage of people's need to prevent or cure the virus.
He explained that the “media media” audience is searching for straw or any illusion related to it for survival, or any medical pages to take health information from, without making sure that it is fake or real, as the owners of fake medical pages have sufficient experience in studying the public’s psyche, and the way of dealing With him by intimidating them from the virus, and by giving them unrealistic treatment, for one goal, to increase the number of followers of the page to hundreds of thousands for purely profitable purposes.
Al-Amoush added: Once the virus is eradicated, the phenomenon of placebo doctors will disappear, and they will search for another crisis in order to promote it, according to developments in the health situation in the world.
He added that a wide audience knows that these pages are fake and promote falsehoods and information that are not true, except that they are swimming with the current so that they may find what they are looking for, which is called in psychology "attachment to illusion and imagination", pointing out that great countries conduct medical research to find a cure Corona, while crisis dealers laugh at the audience and exploit their feelings.
He pointed out that placebo doctors take advantage of crises to achieve fame and increase followers, and take advantage of the public to guide them in the future towards other issues, which may be unhealthy, adding that placebo doctors are a global and temporal phenomenon, where they work in the same way in times of crisis, and each crisis has its audience looking for solutions and reassurance, following up Placebo doctors have their language and rhetoric to persuade the audience, and they have the power to influence the feelings of their followers, and to employ their anxieties to their advantage.
Anti-misleading pages
Chest diseases consultant at Obaidullah Hospital in Ras Al-Khaimah, Dr. Abeer Qasim, reported that the placebo doctors spread fear and anxiety to a wide cross-section of the public through the “social media”, as a result of spreading rumors and misleading their practice, and claiming medical opinions about the treatment of “corona”, not based on Any scientific reference.
She added that taking placebo may negatively affect the health of consumers, especially that it was not issued by a chest disease doctor or a specialist in infectious diseases, pointing to the importance of combating misleading pages by regulatory agencies, and spreading awareness of not taking into account the opinions of "social media" doctors, especially since they do not It is based on any formal medical scientific foundations.
A dummy doctor warned against touching or approaching the lotus flower, as it is the source of the coronavirus.