FACT-CHECK: Football icon Cristiano Ronaldo does not endorse a wonder drug

CLAIM: Football icon Cristiano Ronaldo was cured by and now endorses a Filipino-made ointment that treats coxarthrosis and other forms of joint pain and bone diseases in three weeks.

RATING: FALSE

An AI-manipulated video of football legend Cristiano Ronaldo is making rounds on the internet, selling a dubious ointment that could supposedly cure coxarthrosis, joint pains, and other bone-related diseases.

In the video, the deepfake Ronaldo falsely claimed that after years of suffering from bone disease coxarthrosis, he was “saved by a Filipino doctor” who purportedly developed an ointment from “bee venom.”

However, the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) verification portal does not list any ointment or medication for bone-related illnesses that includes bee venom as a main agent. While the FDA maintains listings of approved products containing bee venom, these products are categorized as cosmetics rather than medical drugs.

The video then proceeded with yet another out-of-this-world claim, asserting that the Filipino doctor works for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), a United States government agency focused on planetary studies and space exploration.

Although the Portuguese athlete has reportedly been suffering from a degenerative disease called tendonitis since 2014, there are no reports from reputable news and sports sources that can substantiate the claim that he has ever been diagnosed with coxarthrosis, and that he was treated by a Filipino doctor.

PressOnePH has also learned that the AI-manipulated video was from an interview that Ronaldo did for a video podcast for WHOOP, a sports performance metrics company, that was published on YouTube on May 15, 2024.

The doctor, Alvin Francisco, on the other hand, is a Filipino physician and social media influencer with 2.4 million followers on Tiktok and 963 thousand subscribers on Youtube.

This was not the first time Francisco was used in snake oil marketing schemes. In March 2023, Francisco posted a Tiktok video warning the public against similar suspicious advertisements.

@docalvinfrancisco
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The bee venom advertisement, posted by a Facebook page misrepresenting itself as “Doc.Alvin – Health Life,” has garnered 486 likes, 68 comments, and 33 shares on Facebook. Nikko Balbedina

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