Celebrity medicine "expert" on TV proved to be fake

China's lucrative healthcare advertisements have once again come under fire after a self-claimed "medicine expert" known for her presence on multiple Chinese TV healthcare programs was proved to be fake from her miscellaneous titles.    

Liu Hongbin [File photo: cgtn.com]

Liu Hongbin, who is constantly seen on Chinese TV shows promoting "miracle cures" as a self-proclaimed prestigious medical expert, was not a registered doctor or a licensed pharmacist in Beijing, Beijing Youth Daily reported on Wednesday citing the city's Municipal Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine and the Food and Drug watchdog.

The woman who styled her appearance and sophisticated healthcare products and was known for promotional stunts is also not a listed doctor in the Peking University Health Science Center, Beijing Ditan Hospital Capital Medical University or the People's Hospital of Jilin Province, despite her frequent claims by several TV advertisements she is featured in, Beijing Morning Post confirmed on Wednesday.

Switching roles from a member of the Chinese Medical Association to senior nutrition expert over the recent years, Liu was constantly caught on camera popularizing drugs for different uses.

She appeared as an "expert from Peking University" when introducing a diabetes drug in a program aired on Henan TV, while seen changing into a director of a beauty salon in another show advertising her self-developed freckle recipe.

With the last of the three characters in her name changed from time to time (sometimes “斌” while in some occasions “彬”), Liu has also stepped into the shoes of medical family successors from Chinese ethnic groups on TV several times.

The reported notorious fraud was thrust into public limelight in February 2015 after a health advertisement where she advocated a drug named "Tangtong 5.0" as being able to "completely cure diabetes" was determined to have misleading information by quality supervision authorities in Xinhuang Dong Autonomous County in central China's Hunan Province.

She made further waves recently when a sales manager of the Mongolian medicine she advertised for revealed her false identity.

"Liu Hongbin has been on many advertisements and all of her titles are fake," said the manager surnamed Liu on Wednesday in an interview with Hongxing Xinwen, a local newspaper affiliated to Chengdu Business Daily.

The interview has soon received wide attention on China's social media with numerous netizens extending concerns over safety of the drugs that Liu promoted while at the same time calling for strengthened supervision mechanism over the public medicine promos.

"The TV stations displaying Liu's deceptive advertising must shoulder due responsibility for providing propaganda platforms for such fraud," a netizen @gongan commented on China's Twitter-like Weibo.

However, staff from the Henan digital TV where the false "Tangtong 5.0" adverts of Liu Hongbin used to be on show, told Hongxing Xinwen that it is the outsourcing company rather than the TV station itself that runs the promo.

The case, which highlights China's hook on the healthcare products as well as credibility of drug adverts, is far from the first time that crooked promotions have hit the media headlines.

A senior couple in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong Province has also stirred up huge online outcry after being reported by Qilu Evening News in September last year to spend more than 600,000 yuan (87,828 US dollars) over the past four years in purchasing the healthcare drugs in obsession with the promotion pitfalls and fell sick for the adulterants.  

According to a survey unveiled by China Consumer Association in June last year, 70% of domestic consumers were not "satisfied" with the healthcare products industry, with over 60% of them claiming to distrust related advertisements despite the total sales amount of the industry stood at a record high of 200 billion yuan (29 billion US dollars).