Program: Deepfakes of health experts being used to sell supplements

Norman Swan: So Tegan, are you into this sort of thing where you watch your yoga on a screen and you contort yourself in front of a screen?

Tegan Taylor: Oh, I have done this before, especially during Covid, because I do love yoga as well. I couldn't go to my normal yoga classes during lockdowns, and I did do a bit of Yoga with Adriene I think actually was who I was following along, me and millions of other people around the planet during the pandemic. How about you?

Norman Swan: Well, I've tried to do it with one of my children, and it damn near killed me. I mean, downward dog is probably the best I can do.

Tegan Taylor: You should try child's pose. 

Norman Swan: Okay, I'll work on it. 

Tegan Taylor: That's what you want. Why are you talking to me about yoga right now?

Norman Swan: Because yoga from a screen can be good for your back pain. 

Tegan Taylor: Does it have to come through a screen? 

Norman Swan: It doesn't. But getting to a trainer and dealing with the expense can be hard. 

Tegan Taylor: Cool, it's flexible in more than one sense of the word. 

Norman Swan: Yeah, we're going to have all sorts of postures on today's Health Report. I'm Norman Swan on Wurundjeri land.

Tegan Taylor: And I'm Tegan Taylor on Jagera and Turrbal land.

Norman Swan: Also ahead, there have been many changes to the National Disability Insurance Scheme in recent months, with more to come. You'll be hearing from two women who rely on the scheme for support, and they've been coming into the studio here to challenge Minister Bill Shorten on the barriers they've faced.

Tegan Taylor: And we don't usually get to play much music on the Health Report, but later you'll be hearing a couple of really special songs that have helped people with young onset dementia and their families. 

But first, Norman, let us talk, as we always do, about some health news. And I got a really interesting email over the last week from Jonathan Shaw…

Norman Swan: One of our regular guests whenever we talk about diabetes. 

Tegan Taylor: Yeah, exactly. He's one of the top bods at the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute, and he was getting in touch because he sent me the link to a Facebook video of himself seemingly endorsing a supplement. And it wasn't him, it was a deep fake video. It purported to show him talking with Karl Stefanovic, and it was a complete fake. And actually, just to give you a bit of a flavour of it, have a listen to this:

Deep fake video audio:

A scandal has broken out online after a statement from well-known Dr Jonathan Shaw. He called everyone treating type 2 diabetes with traditional methods 'idiots', and fiercely criticised modern approaches to tackling the disease.

Yeah, I did call those who still treat type 2 diabetes with metformin in 2024 idiots. Do you honestly think metformin is the answer? By now it's just not enough to manage diabetes effectively. I've developed a new formula that stabilises blood sugar levels in just 24 hours and starts working from the inside out to restore your metabolism.

Tegan Taylor: I'm really interested to get your take on this, Norman, because there's so many layers to this story. 

Norman Swan: There are, and in fact (we'll come to it later) I've been the victim of something like this in the past as well. This is a product called Glyco Balance. It's a dietary supplement. It says it contains cinnamon stick, barberry berries, bitter melon, white mulberry leaf, juniper berry, ginger, biotin and chromium. It makes all sorts of claims. But here you've got very impressive likenesses of Karl Stefanovic and Jonathan Shaw.

Tegan Taylor: And that's, I think, part of the thing, is that you actually have to be coming in super, super sceptical to anything you encounter online to be able to see it. Jonathan Shaw, with respect, isn't a particularly famous person, but he's a really important person in the field in Australia, and so it's even more credible, in a sense, that he would be the voice of this because it's not out of the question that he would be speaking with authority about something like this. 

Norman Swan: They have chosen the right person, in a sense, to promote this product with high credibility, even though he might not be well known. 

Tegan Taylor: Well, speaking of people with high credibility who are well known, you were the victim of this similar sort of scam. 

Norman Swan: Yeah, from memory it was a blood pressure medication. And we've actually had some feedback that maybe for this product as well…it gets very confusing, and I've stopped chasing it, but when it first started we were getting emails from listeners saying, 'Are you really promoting this product?' And I actually had to put out on social: if you see me promoting any product at all on any medium, it ain't me, that's not what I do. 

Tegan Taylor: The law doesn't neatly cover this. Depending on what the deep fake is about, there's potentially defamation if you're bringing someone into disrepute, as you say. If you're selling a product, there's probably the Australian Consumer Law under misleading and deceptive conduct. But there isn't really a recourse for individuals, unless it's something like bullying or sexually explicit content.

Norman Swan: There actually is recourse through the Therapeutic Goods Administration, should the Therapeutic Goods Administration wish to take action.

Tegan Taylor: Yeah, but that's for the supplement, not for you as an individual. 

Norman Swan: No, no, no, you're not allowed, under the TGA's rules, to use an opinion leader like a doctor or a healthcare professional or a researcher to promote your product. That is actually illegal and actually has fines attached to it. They're not allowed to use doctors, nurses or others to promote it. You're allowed to have disease awareness campaigns, but you're not allowed to use influential people to promote the product. So that's illegal and has fines attached, if you can find out who's at fault. There's just one big caveat; we've got no proof one way or the other of who actually did this. It could have been the manufacturer. It could have been an independent party. It could be an independent person. In other words, the manufacturer could have been scammed themselves. We just don't know. The point about all this is, though, that the consumer has been scammed by this. And I would assume that, in a reverse sense, if you're a manufacturer and you've been scammed, I'm not sure what your recourse is because you could be fined for something that might not be your fault, but you'd have to prove that you didn't do it. I mean, it's a very difficult area.

Tegan Taylor: Yeah, it's really, really thorny. So we reported the ad when we saw it, and we would continue to do so, and we also got in touch with Meta to see what they had to say, and a Meta spokesperson did respond to us saying that they had removed the content for violating its policies. They say 'Meta does not want scams on our platforms', and they're continuing to invest in tools and technology to prevent them. They say 'The safety of our users is of utmost importance', and that they will continue to work with industry, the government and law enforcement to protect Australians from scams. So that's the end of their statement there. 

But I think part of this is that it's such an emerging field. The technology is gaining sophistication really, really quickly, and it's hard for the platforms to keep up from…well, from a technological point of view because the sorts of tools that they're trying to develop to detect these scams are harder to create, but also from a regulatory point of view, it's hard to regulate in a space where there's so much change happening so quickly.

Norman Swan: And all we can say in the end is buyer beware. But if you see this sort of thing in the future, complain to the TGA.

Tegan Taylor: And if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. And I think there's a fairly strong argument that the platforms where these sorts of things appear have a responsibility, which, as we said, Meta has responded, saying that they take it seriously. I expect we'll see more regulation in this space.