Doctor speaks out about conditions at two Fraser Health emergency rooms
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CBS News
2 hours ago
- CBS News
Deepfake videos impersonating real doctors push false medical advice and treatments
Dr. Joel Bervell, a physician known to his hundreds of thousands of followers on social media as the "Medical Mythbuster," has built a reputation for debunking false health claims online. Earlier this year, some of those followers alerted him to a video on another account featuring a man who looked exactly like him. The face was his. The voice was not. "I just felt mostly scared," Bervell told CBS News. "It looked like me. It didn't sound like me... but it was promoting a product that I'd never promoted in the past, in a voice that wasn't mine." It was a deepfake – one example of content that features fabricated medical professionals and is reaching a growing audience, according to cybersecurity experts. The video with Bervell's likeness appeared on multiple platforms – TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube, he said. A CBS News investigation over the past month found dozens of accounts and more than 100 videos across social media sites in which fictitious doctors, some using the identities of real physicians, gave advice or tried to sell products, primarily related to beauty, wellness and weight loss. Most of them were found on TikTok and Instagram, and some of them were viewed millions of times. Most videos reviewed by CBS News were trying to sell products, either through independent websites or well-known online marketplaces. They often made bold claims. One video touted a product "96% more effective than Ozempic." Cybersecurity company ESET also recently investigated this kind of content. It spotted more than 20 accounts on TikTok and Instagram using AI-generated doctors to push products, according to Martina López, a security researcher at ESET. "Whether it's due to some videos going viral or accounts gaining more followers, this type of content is reaching an increasingly wider audience," she said. CBS News contacted TikTok and Meta, the parent company of Instagram, to get clarity on their policies. Both companies removed videos flagged by CBS News, saying they violated platform policies. CBS News also reached out to YouTube, which said its privacy request process "allows users to request the removal of AI-generated content that realistically simulates them without their permission." YouTube said the videos provided by CBS News didn't violate its Community Guidelines and would remain on the platform. "Our policies prohibit content that poses a serious risk of egregious harm by spreading medical misinformation that contradicts local health authority (LHA) guidance about specific health conditions and substances," YouTube said. TikTok says that between January and March, it proactively removed more than 94% of content that violated its policies on AI-generated content. After CBS News contacted Meta, the company said it removed videos that violated its Advertising Standards and restricted other videos that violated its Health and Wellness policies, making them accessible to just those 18 and older. Meta also said bad actors constantly evolve their tactics to attempt to evade enforcement. Scammers are using readily available AI tools to significantly improve the quality of their content, and viewing videos on small devices makes it harder to detect visual inconsistencies, ESET's chief security evangelist, Tony Anscombe, said. ESET said there are some red flags that can help someone detect AI-generated content, including glitches like flickering, blurred edges or strange distortions around a person's face. Beyond the visuals, a voice that sounds robotic or lacks natural human emotion is a possible indicator of AI. Finally, viewers should be skeptical of the message itself and question overblown claims like "miracle cures" or "guaranteed results," which are common tactics in digital scams, Anscombe said. "Trust nothing, verify everything," Anscombe said. "So if you see something and it's claiming that, you know, there's this miracle cure and this miracle cure comes from X, go and check X out ... and do it independently. Don't follow links. Actually go and browse for it, search for it and verify yourself." Bervell said the deepfake videos featuring his likeness were taken down after he asked his followers to help report them. He also said he's concerned videos like these will undermine public trust in medicine. "When we have fiction out there, we have what are thought to be experts in a field saying something that may not be true," he said. "That distorts what fact is, and makes it harder for the public to believe anything that comes out of science, from a doctor, from the health care system overall."
New York Times
2 hours ago
- New York Times
Woman Claims Marine Laced Her Drink With Abortion Pills
A Texas woman accused a U.S. Marine in a lawsuit on Monday of lacing her drink with abortion pills, terminating her pregnancy against her wishes. The woman, Liana Davis, 37, claims that Christopher Cooprider, 34, a U.S. Marine Corps Captain from Arizona who she says impregnated her, secretly dissolved 10 pills of misoprostol, a drug used in medical abortions, in a hot chocolate he made for her on April 5. She made the accusation in a civil complaint filed in a federal court in Texas.. Shortly after drinking the beverage, the complaint says, Ms. Davis began bleeding and went to the hospital, where she lost her pregnancy. The lawsuit also names Aid Access, a major seller of abortion pills online, as a defendant. Ms. Davis said in the lawsuit that Mr. Cooprider used Aid Access to obtain the pills. The suit named the founder of Aid Access, the Dutch physician Rebecca Gomperts, as a third defendant. Mr. Cooprider, a flight student with the U.S. Marines in Corpus Christi, Texas, declined to comment on the lawsuit or say if he had a lawyer. The U.S. Marine Corps said in a statement that it was aware of a civil lawsuit involving one of its aviation students but that no additional information was available. In a statement, Dr. Gomperts pointed to Aid Access's role in providing 'essential, lifesaving health care' for vulnerable women. Ms. Davis became pregnant by Mr. Cooprider in early 2025, the lawsuit claims. Text messages included in the lawsuit and said to be from Ms. Davis to Mr. Cooprider describe the pregnancy as 'unplanned.' In one message she called herself Mr. Cooprider's 'mistress.' The lawsuit says that Ms. Davis has three children with her husband, with whom she was in divorce proceedings. According to the messages, Mr. Cooprider told Ms. Davis that he wanted her to have an abortion, even before she had confirmed her pregnancy with a test. Ms. Davis texted Mr. Cooprider on Jan. 31, 2025, for his thoughts on her possible pregnancy, and he responded, 'Get rid of it,' the lawsuit said. Mr. Cooprider added that the two were not in love or a couple, and that bringing a child into the world would be 'messed up,' according to the lawsuit. On Feb. 3, Mr. Cooprider sent a text message saying that if the pregnancy test was 'positive then we need to schedule a clinic visit and get an abortion pill asap,' according to the complaint. On Feb. 5, Mr. Cooprider texted Ms. Davis and said he was going to order abortion pills for her, according to the complaint, a step it said Ms. Davis opposed. On Feb. 6, Mr. Cooprider purchased pills from Aid Access, according to the lawsuit. 'I'm not OK with you buying something like that w/o my permission,' Ms. Davis wrote him, according to the complaint. Mr. Cooprider brought the pills to Ms. Davis's home and repeatedly asked her to take them, according to the lawsuit. Pictures included in the lawsuit show two containers of abortion drugs labeled 'Chris Cooprider.' The text exchanges grew more heated over several weeks, then took an abrupt turn. In early April, the lawsuit says, Mr. Cooprider texted Ms. Davis to propose a 'trust building night' where he would make them 'warm relaxing tea.' Mr. Cooprider went to Ms. Davis's home on April 5, where he made her a hot chocolate, according to the lawsuit. Ms. Davis was eight weeks pregnant at the time, the lawsuit said. According to the lawsuit, she began hemorrhaging and cramping within 30 minutes of drinking the beverage. Mr. Cooprider said he would drive to get Ms. Davis's mother, who lived nearby, the lawsuit said. The plan was that she would mind Ms. Davis's three children, and Mr. Cooprider could then drive Ms. Davis to the emergency room. But after leaving to get Ms. Davis's mother around 12:10 a.m., Mr. Cooprider stopped responding to calls and texts, and did not pick her up, according to the lawsuit. Screenshots of text messages included in the lawsuit show Ms. Davis repeatedly texting Mr. Cooprider, including one sent at 12:34 a.m. saying: 'I'm gushing blood. Please hurry.' Ms. Davis sent her mother money for an Uber just before 1 a.m., around the same time Mr. Cooprider responded to the text messages, the lawsuit said. He apologized and told her he had a flight in the morning, according to the complaint, and then stopped answering. Before leaving the house, Ms. Davis found the opened packets of pills, the lawsuit said. A neighbor drove Ms. Davis to a Bay Area hospital's emergency room, where she lost the pregnancy, according to the complaint. Ms. Davis brought the pill bottles with her to the emergency room and gave them to the Corpus Christi Police Department, according to the lawsuit. The Police Department said a detective investigated the allegations and shared the results with the Nueces County District Attorney's Office. 'After careful review, both agencies concluded that the elements of a crime could not be established, and the investigation was subsequently closed as unfounded,' Madeline Vaughn, a spokeswoman with the department, said in a statement. Ms. Davis's suit seeks punitive damages from the defendants. It did not give a figure, but said the amount was greater than $75,000. Sheelagh McNeill contributed research.
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Target cookies recalled due to possible contamination with wood pieces, impacting multiple states
So far, no illnesses have been reported. Frosted sugar cookies sold at Target stores across the United States have been recalled because they may contain pieces of wood. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a recall for 803 cases of Favorite Day Bakery frosted sugar cookies sold at Target stores in 20 states and Washington, D.C. Favorite Day is a private label brand sold at Target. The voluntary recall was initiated on July 22, 2025, by Give and Go Prepared Foods Corp in Etobicoke, Canada, which prepared the affected bakery items. Target said it has removed all of the impacted cookies from its store shelves and online, according to a statement sent to NBC Chicago. As of Aug. 14, Target does not have the recall listed on its website. How can I identify which specific cookies are recalled? The affected Favorite Day Bakery frosted sugar cookies are the 10-count packages (Net wt. 13.5 oz.) with lot number 25195 and UPC code 85239-41250 3. 'Best By Date can vary as they are applied by retailer when removed from freezer,' the FDA indicates in the recall. Has anyone gotten sick from the cookies? No illnesses have been reported yet. However, the FDA classified the recall as Class II, which means eating the contaminated cookies 'may cause temporary or medically reversible adverse health consequences or where the probability of serious adverse health consequences is remote.' Where are the Target stores that sold the affected cookies? The FDA says the affected cookies were distributed to Target stores in the following states and D.C.: Connecticut Delaware Illinois Indiana Kentucky Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Missouri New Hampshire New Jersey New York North Carolina Ohio Pennsylvania Rhode Island Tennessee Vermont Virginia Washington, D.C. I bought the cookies that were recalled. What should I do? Customers who purchased the affected frosted sugar cookies can get a full refund by bringing them to their nearest Target store or by calling Target guest relations at 1-800-440-0680. Solve the daily Crossword
