The image of the well-known surgeon, Professor Krzysztof Bielecki, has been used by fraudsters to, among other things, advertise a pseudo-drug with alleged anti-atherosclerotic effects. Materials using deep fake technology have also been used to promote other preparations with questionable effects, and recently the professor was even put to death. He was interviewed about the case in a program called Wyszło na Jaw on the Wyszło na zdrowie channel.

I am talking to a person who has accomplished a thing that only one man has succeeded in the last more than two thousand years. Well, it turns out that you have been dead for some time now. At least, that's what information has appeared in the public space. So how did it come to pass that you are nevertheless alive and here?

Last Sunday morning my colleague from the choir called. When he heard my voice, he said: okay, we're switching off, because I hear you're alive. In a moment, the father of a patient from near Garwolin whom I was treating called. He asked how I was feeling. I replied that I was fine and asked: what happened? He said that someone had put me down. Then another phone call, this time from Busk Zdroj. I felt strange when the same choir colleague, a friend of mine, sent me information posted on Facebook. There was my obituary with my date of birth and date of death. The information said that I had been shot by the pharmaceutical mafia because I had defended people, telling them that the only legitimate drugs were those I recommended, and that it was a shame to spend money on the rest....

The story began on September 27 last year. That was when I was first called and told that I was advertising the drug Acardin on Facebook. Indeed, there was my image, which was easily pulled from my various media appearances. Using artificial intelligence, audio was substituted of supposedly lectures I was giving about drugs. These are such foolish lectures and so meaningless that it is shameful... I appeal from this place to everyone: do not believe what is written on the Internet, unless the content is clearly signed, by name, by title, by position, so that if anything happens, the author can be contacted. I have been a doctor for 62 years, practicing surgery. I have earned a reputation as a pretty good Polish medic. People trust me, and that's the whole drama. If Prof. Bielecki advertises something, it means it must be good, and people blindly buy these medicines. Once they buy, they only call me. Then it's already too late, because the medicine is bought. I then just ask them to go to the police with it. It is these people that I feel most sorry for, because I already have my image, and no one is going to harm me or improve it. I am no longer afraid of anything in life, except God and spilled peritonitis. I am a Social Security recipient and I am happy with what I have. But I feel sorry for people. I just feel sorry for them. I tried to do something about it, but it's a hopeless struggle. I reported to the police, filed a report with the prosecutor. After a few, literally three days, I got a reply from the prosecutor that in view of the impossibility of tracing the sender, the case is discontinued. It can't be detected, and even more so when artificial intelligence is involved, we are powerless at all. I thought it would calm down, but it has continued since September until now. Maybe since I've already been put to death, it will finally stop.

Indeed, the problem is the use of the image of famous people: artists, but precisely also doctors.... This includes Michal Sutkowski. We have said about the mechanism of this fake news. Let's say a little more about what you are allegedly advertising. What kind of medicine is it?

It started with the drug Acardin. It is of completely unknown production. Reporters of TVN's "Attention" program bought this preparation through an online pharmacy and reached the warehouse from which it was issued. And there the guy brazenly said that someone had taken the identity of his warehouse. He still made himself a victim.... Then the Internet made me a cardiac surgeon, then an orthopedist, and recently I became a rheumatologist. I don't have the strength for it anymore. When I was a cardiologist, I called the national consultant for cardiology, Professor Hryniewiecki of the Anin Institute of Cardiology, asking him to tell the environment that I had nothing to do with it. But recently, when the information came out that I was the head of the Rheumatology Clinic of the Medical Academy in Bydgoszcz, after all, I'm not going to call the rector or the dean and explain myself. All I did was go to the Supreme Medical Council, because a doctor is not allowed to advertise drugs, and if someone wanted to harm me, they could report me to the prosecutor. I went to the NRL and talked to the president. Two lawyers were supposed to act in this matter. But I don't see a solution here. A certain impotence follows.

Using a doctor's image to promote a supposedly therapeutic product has consequences for that doctor as well. And what potential consequences does it have for a patient who receives treatment from a cardiologist and forgoes that treatment in order to take such a product?

To be healthy, you have to be smart. Again, I say that all this information must be checked with the attending physician. As Professor John Murphy of Chicago said in 1889, the responsible person for a sick person is the doctor he or she came to first. If you have your own doctor, by whom you have been treated so far, and you feel like taking these drugs that the Internet advertises, please consult with your doctor. Do not stop traditional treatment, classical treatment and rely on fake news. Because health is the most important thing.

In the case of cardiovascular measures, I think life also ...

Imagine Bielecki standing with a bag of soda and advertising that if you drink a bag of soda every day, the atherosclerosis in your vessels will disappear. This was put in my mouth, because supposedly I am in such good shape because I have been drinking soda for 25 years and have clean dishes. The result was that a patient from Plonsk comes to me, to the clinic, asking me to clean her vessels! Well, her hands are falling off! I apologized to her, of course, and did not charge her any fee for such a visit, because she too was a victim of manipulation. But not enough, there is a developing hejt at my address, because after all, there are posts on the Internet. Some are kind and some are not. For example, I read: "Mr. Professor, not enough for you yet? Do you still have to take on such publicity?". I have now adopted such a tactic that wherever I appear in public, I start by denouncing all false information that is spread using my image.