What do you do when doctors use social media to misinform patients and the public in order to monetize their interests in the unregulated supplements industry?
A friend-follower on Twitter sent me a direct message with a link to a liver supplement sold by a “legit doctor.” He wanted me to confirm if the product was genuine and whether it worked as intended. The product was the InStrength Liver Supplement, made and sold by Dr Ashwin Vijay, an orthopaedic doctor based in Chennai. Dr Vijay has close to 500,000 followers on Instagram, to whom he preaches motivational philosophy through broken, imperfect and misinterpreted medical science to ultimately take them on a ride that ends at his online supplements store or the recently opened offline one. …
Cyriac Abby Philips is a highly cited, acclaimed and award-winning liver disease specialist and clinician-scientist based at The Liver Institute, Rajagiri Hospital, Kochi. His seminal research includes the introduction of healthy donor stool transplant for patients battling severe alcohol-related liver disease. He has also authored disruptive peer-reviewed publications on Ayush-related liver injury and herbal and dietary supplements.
newsletters+cyriac.abby@themorningcontext.com