FACT CHECK: Fake Philippine General Hospital page promotes arthritis ‘cure’
Claim: The Philippine General Hospital (PGH) promotes Bee Venom Japan Cream, a product that claims to ‘completely treat’ arthritis pains.
Rating: FALSE
Why we fact-checked this: The Facebook video containing the claim has over 350,000 views, 1,600 reactions, and 581 comments as of writing.
The video is posted by a Facebook page named “Philippine General Hospital – Department of F-DA.”
The text “Complete treatment of arthritis wrist—ankle—back pain ” is superimposed on top of a video clip of medical practitioner and online health personality Dr. Gary Sy.
Fake page: The page that posted the video is not an official page of the PGH. The official Facebook page of the Philippine General Hospital has over 134,000 likes and 141,000 followers as of writing.
Several Facebook pages have been using PGH’s name to pose as the official page of the hospital, which led the hospital to issue warnings against illegitimate pages in 2020 and 2023.
Spliced clip, lipsynced voice: The video also spliced clips from a video originally published on Sy’s official YouTube channel on July 6, 2024.
The misleading video promoting the supposed arthritis cure used clips from the 1:53 to 2:49 timestamp of Sy’s original video. In the original video, Sy talked about dialysis not being needed in the early stage of chronic kidney disease. He did not mention Bee Venom Japan Cream.
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Not FDA registered: The product Bee Venom Japan Cream endorsed in the video is also not on the Philippine Food and Drug Administration’s list of registered products, as seen on its online verification portal.
Similar claims: Although the video promoted the product Bee Venom Japan Cream, it showed photos of Southmoon Bee Venom. Rappler had already debunked posts promoting this product that used unrelated clips from GMA’s Balitanghali telecast. – Lorenz Pasion/Rappler.com
Keep us aware of suspicious Facebook pages, groups, accounts, websites, articles, or photos in your network by contacting us at factcheck@rappler.com. You may also report dubious claims to the #FactsFirstPH tipline by messaging Rappler on Facebook or Newsbreak via Twitter direct message. You may also report through our Viber fact check chatbot. Let us battle disinformation one Fact Check at a time.