Fact Check: Don’t fall for this fake claim of 109-year-old Burmese cardiologist U Kyaw Thu Maung urging others to take Cardiovax!

A post claiming to be U Kyaw Thu Maung, a well-known Burmese cardiologist who retired at the age of 70, and still young at the age of 109, has surfaced amongst Burmese language users. The viral posts claim that his secret about longevity was taking Cardiovax medicine, a blood purifying agent. However, Factcrescendo Myanmar team found this to be a hoax.

Let’s take a look at the viral claims first.

As seen in the below screenshot of a blog post published in an interview style-format with Burmese cardiologist U Kyaw Thu Maung, it is claimed that blood should be purified to have longevity, and the doctors refer to the secret medicine to achieve this is a medicine called Cardiovax. 

Original Link – Link | Archive link

Below is the English translation of the viral post.

 “Kyaw Thu Maung, a well-known Burmese cardiologist who retired at the age of 70, is still young in heart and body. He has been retired for 39 years. Social security authorities do not like him. He is now 109 years old, but he looks 60 years old.

Kyaw Thu Maung says the secret of longevity lies in the arteries. If they are clean and healthy, one can live up to 120 years old and even longer and feel completely healthy. The cardiologist fully confirmed this statement.

Our correspondent interviewed Kyaw Thu Maung. He cleansed the arteries and explained how to live longer.”

Photo caption reads that the president congratulated U Kyaw Thu Maung on his 109 years birthday, is seen in his office.

The post claiming the same can be found here and here on Facebook. Some posts have been circulating since last year.

Fact Check

A keyword search for a famous Burmese cardiologist named U Kyaw Thu Maung in Burmese did not yield any results. Google image search using the viral photo yields several results including a photo claiming to be 109-year-old German cardiologist professor, Dr. Klaus Brandt, investor and a multi-award winner from Germany. Written in English as the same as content in Burmese, Dr. Klaus Brandt is contributing and recommending Normatone, blood purifier medicine. Photo caption reads Prime Minister congratulated him on his 109th birthday, is seen in his office. But , the German government does not have a prime minister.

Original Link – Webflow | Archive link

The website also claimed the same photo as Dr. Thomas D. Walker, and longevity is due to a medicine called HeartKeep.(Check here)

Along with these dubious results, we also found a 2019 interview with Vladimir Pozner, a well-known journalist on Tatar Congress website. It coincides with Google results suggesting that the name of the person is France-born Russian-American TV journalist Vladimir Pozner Jr.

Original link: Tatar-Congress | Archive link

When searching for this photo on Yandex, a popular search engine among Russian-language users, we found more similar results.

Amongst the search results, we found an interview video on YouTube, which includes the same scenes as the photo. The interview is about Tatarstan politics interview by Tatmedia according to Google translation. The interview can also be found on Pozner Online, his personal website.

Then Fact Crescendo Myanmar performed keyword search for Cardiovax. We found it to be advertised on many online shopping websites. Most of them are popular shopping platforms in India. The medicine is claimed to be a blood purifier. There is also a website called Cardiovax.in that sells the same medicine. However, we cannot find any contact information as well as physical address reaching for our story to debunk the claim. The website was launched over a year ago. Also, we noticed that the scamadviser website had listed cardiovax.in website as risky.

Fact Crescendo Myanmar also found a Facebook page promoting the same medicine, and with a button “shop on website” link, was referred to  https://healthy-offer.online. No other information except putting order. A message was sent via the Facebook page, but no reply has been received as of now. There we also found some profile names for Cardiovax  here and here. However, none of these contain company address and contact information either.

Fact Crescendo Myanmar placed an order online that has attached at the end of the blog post in Burmese, and left phone number. A lady speaking Burmese called back to our phone number and asked where the prescription medicine could be delivered. When we asked more about the product as well as to provide company address, she refused to provide further details and just referred to read the blog post and dropped the call.

Dr. Thurein Hlaing Win who oversaw health and medical knowledge hellosayarwon webiste, and regularly contributes medicinal articles, said “There is no blood purifying medicine in reality”.

Conclusion

We were able to verify that the photo used for the viral blog article marketing Cardiovax medicine was not of a 109-year-old cardiologist but of a Russian-American TV journalist Vladimir Pozner Jr. And we did not find any news of a Burmese cardiologist named U Kyaw Thu Maung as mentioned in the claim as well.

Fact Crescendo Myanmar could not verify whether Cardiovax medicine marketed via Cardiovax.in is actually sold through online or it’s effectiveness as claimed in the viral post.