05/10/2024 – 12:55
The Secretariat of Social Communication (Secom), headed by Minister Paulo Pimenta, asked the Attorney General’s Office (AGU) and the Federal Police (PF) that two doctors be investigated on suspicion of disseminating fake news about the actions of authorities in mitigation of the damage caused by heavy rains in Rio Grande do Sul.
Doctors Roberta Zaffari Townsend and Victor Sorrentino stated on social media that the National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa) was making it difficult to send medicines, obtained through donations, to those affected by the rains in Rio Grande do Sul. According to the publications by health professionals, “fellow doctors” obtained private planes to transport the donations, but the “Anvisa bureaucracy” was preventing the medicines from being sent.
The dermatologist has 33.5 thousand followers on Instagram. Sorrentino is followed by 1.3 million people. He sells postgraduate courses in Integrative Functional Medicine and makes motivational posts on his social media profile.
“These medications are already approved, they leave pharmacies and distributors, but they need to arrive here in Rio Grande do Sul. It’s not viable, it’s not possible for these medicines to sit on planes without being able to be transported, and we’re waiting here to being able to bring these medications without receiving a single cent”, said Sorrentino in a live broadcast this Thursday, 9.
In a statement, Anvisa says that “the video that is circulating on social media about Anvisa prohibiting the entry of medicines donated to assist the victims of the calamity caused by the floods in Rio Grande do Sul is false”.
“The National Health Surveillance Agency clarifies that it has not placed any restrictions on the transport of medicines destined for Rio Grande do Sul. Anvisa also reinforces that it is fulfilling its commitment to work towards health security and is monitoring the emergency situation closely, in direct contact with federal, state and municipal authorities. In this way, it acts to meet any exceptional circumstances necessary to mitigate the damage caused by the flood”, he says.
In a comment on the publication of Anvisa’s note on Instagram, Sorrentino says that “despite not having criticized, cursed, invented, much less created this fashion narrative called ‘fake news’, he was attended to by Anvisa.
“I was promptly called by several people from the institution, they were extremely understanding and helpful, there was in fact no official note yet with flexibility, and this was made official in your previous post. I thank God for the opportunity to help and also for the appeal being answered by you! The only thing I asked for was urgently and clearly in the video: help and flexibility,” he stated.
In another excerpt published on his profile, Sorrentino says that the intention was not to politicize the case, but simply to help those affected and speed up the process of sending medicines to the southern state.
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