Pseudoscience and fraudulent products for COVID-19 management

Abstract

As of now, the COVID-19 pandemic has become uncontrolled and is spreading widely throughout the world. Additionally, new variants of the mutated viral variants have been found in some countries that are more dangerous than the original strain. Even vaccines cannot produce complete protective immunity against the newer strains of SARS-CoV-2. Due to such a dreadful situation, lots of fear and depression have been created among the public. People are looking for the treatment of the disease at any cost and there is a race in the market to provide treatment and make money, whether it is effective or not! In such a condition, many fraud products, remedies, and myths have come into the market, which is falsely claimed to be effective for the disease and can harm the patients. Hence, FDA has banned such products and remedies. In this review, we have compiled all such fraudulent and pseudosciences identified for COVID-19. Currently, in the pandemic time, health agencies are approving the repurposed medicines based on the small-scale clinical data for emergency uses that become ineffective (most of the cases) after large randomized clinical studies. Proper vigilance strategies need to be defined by the regulatory agencies of the nation and routine awareness programs shall be arranged for educating the people and healthcare workers on routine updates.

Recent review of COVID-19 management: diagnosis, treatment and vaccination

“…The transition phase of COVID-19 is associated with many changes, it enhances the use of hand sanitizers, aerosols, surface sterilizing agents, cleaning solutions, PPE kits, face masks, and gloves [ 4 ]. It sparks the condition of health, age, including acceleration in innovation, collaboration, discovery, catalyzing future health and medicine, thereby reimaging health and medicine.…”

“…Several factors lead to complications in COVID-19 management. These include social factors (like vaccine hesitancy [ 4 ], effect of social inequities on healthcare [ 5 ], lack of social protection [ 6 ], etc. ), economic factors (economic inequalities) [ 5 ], an outbreak of other infectious diseases (like monkeypox, severe acute hepatitis, multi-organ failure, black fungus eye infection, etc.).…”

Fast-track development of vaccines for SARS-CoV-2: The shots that saved the world

“…Vaccine passports also raised issues to an unequally vaccinated world, where those who were vaccinated were able to go to work, go to shops and restaurants, engage in leisure activities and travel ( 165 ). Overall, the inadequate immunization coverage, even though the vaccines were shown to be safe and effective, at least in the time frame tested, the uncontrolled number of COVID-19 cases and hospitalisations, and the rapid upsurge of more new variants tipped the scales towards some form of mandatory vaccination policy ( 39 , 166 ). Voluntary vaccination compared to compulsory vaccination policies is at the center of debate in the last 2 years.…”

“…The omicron is the current VOC and some sub-variants are classified as, ‘under monitoring’ (B.1.1.529, BA.1, BA.1.1, BA.2, BA.2.12.1, BA.2.75, BA.3, BA.4, and BA.5) ( Table 1 ). No SARS-CoV-2 variants have been classified as VOHC ( 22 , 39 ).…”

I trust my immunity more than your vaccines: “Appeal to nature” bias strongly predicts questionable health behaviors in the COVID-19 pandemic

“…Such cooperation, however, is rarely unanimous. There is always a portion of individuals who avoid following the recommended practices; the same people sometimes resort to non-evidence-based traditional, complementary and alternative (TM/CAM) health practices (see [ 3 ] for a review). In this paper, we investigate the relations between these two broad types of questionable health behaviors and their psychological roots.…”