title: [Panaceas disseminated over the Internet and vulnerable patients: how to check a market of illusions?].
abstract: This article discusses the proliferation of medical quackery and fraud appearing and disappearing daily on the Internet. The customers of these scams, made vulnerable by disease or the prospect of death, use the Internet to buy products that would probably be ignored in other contexts. This vulnerability is linked to strenuous physical demands that compromise the ability to make decisions. The attempt to control the phenomenon of fraud as strictly rational, without taking into account the vulnerability of consumers who have little to lose and not considering their demands for comprehensive care, can lead to disappointing results, since these nostrums seem to be filling the gaps left by health care structures that have been insensitive to the immaterial nature of human fears.
authors.affiliation: Laboratório de Inovações em Terapias, Ensino e Bioprodutos, Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, Fundação Oswaldo Cruz, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brasil. bioeticaunirio@yahoo.com.br
authors.forename: Paulo R
authors.initials: PR
authors.lastname: Vasconcellos-Silva
authors.forename: Luis David
authors.initials: LD
authors.lastname: Castiel
authors.forename: Marcos
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bagrichevsky
authors.forename: Rosane Harter
authors.initials: RH
authors.lastname: Griep
mesh_terms: D000329:Advertising / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards; D001294:Attitude to Health; D003469:Culture; D005607:Fraud; D006801:Humans; D033181:Information Dissemination; D020407:Internet; D009671:Nostrums; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care; D010565:Persuasive Communication; D011781:Quackery / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012651:Self Medication; D035862:Vulnerable Populations / Q000523:psychology
chemical_list: D009671:Nostrums