Did Rakhi Sawant Just Give Medical Advice To Us?

Rakhi Sawant is giving medical advice on the social media, and we are not sure if we can forgive the Internet for giving her that power. In a video, now being trolled on Twitter, she can be seen making sincere efforts to save you from a death by heart attack, only by killing your brain cells first through her mind-boggling theory. Hold your breath and nose hair clippers, because according to her the latter can save your arteries from being blocked by kachra.

Psssst! Here's a secret cardiologists will never tell you. pic.twitter.com/5ej5Y6cwoH

— Kaveri 🇮🇳 (@ikaveri) August 8, 2018

In this painfully-long video (one minute feels like an eternity!) Sawant can be seen trimming her nose hair, in a public place. But why should we watch this video for more than one millisecond you ask? Because Rakhi has a life-saving advice for you. According to her the dirt gets trapped in your nose due to the nose hair, and ends up clogging your arteries. Hence, you must trim them up, if you want to stay away from heart diseases.

Has Rakhi been signed as a brand ambassador by some nose hair clipper vendor?

No dearth of stupid medical advice on social networking

Social media is full of misguiding medical advice like Sawant’s video. What about the WhatsApp forwarded message that applying coconut oil below your knees will prevent dengue mosquitoes from biting you. I am sure none of the practising medicos in this world knew that Aedes aegypti is scared of Coconut oil.

SOME TAKEAWAYS

• According to Rakhi Sawant, our nose hair accumulates dirt which blocks our arteries and gives us heart disease.
• There is no dearth of misplaced medical advice on social media.
• It also raises mistrust against doctors as people feel that doctors hide cheap preventive methods from people so that they can incur heavy charges from them later.

The problem with such half-baked medical advice is that it is misguiding. It instils false beliefs in people.

Forwarding messages and cooking up rubbish to get likes on social media still doesn’t earn you legal consequences. Moreover, it makes people question scientifically-backed medical procedures and treatments. As a result, many people also end up thinking that medical practitioners indeed do not want to share economic preventive measures. Do they realise that such preventive methods could also end up giving them further health problems?

Nasal hair filters out dust, pollution and foreign particles like pollen from entering your airway. It is a protective mechanism to keep your airway healthy, especially in a country like India, where air pollution levels are alarmingly high. As for the clogging of your arteries, the so-called kachra results from unhealthy lifestyle and eating habits. Now imagine what kind of trouble you can get into, if you start eating carelessly and begin clipping your nose hair.

Sawant’s advice makes as much sense as learning to count and then sitting down to write a thesis on the evolution of man.

But would she take responsibility for the damages from following her advice, if some gullible people indeed take it up? Misplaced medical advice should be a punishable offence. People who mindlessly cook up medical facts do not realise how damaging their messages are, if taken seriously could prove to be. The only way to make them realise that is to make them liable for any damage it may cause to others.

There is already too much mistrust in this country towards the medical profession. Such videos will only make the matters worse. Can you imagine the physician’s agony, whose patient is arguing that he cannot have a coronary blockage because he trims his nose hair? Some phenomenon scar you for life. Rakhi Sawant is one of them. And then we allowed her access to a smartphone and high-speed Internet. Humanity does deserve to suffer for this grave mistake. Hopefully, someone won’t end up paying with their well-being because we decided to endure Sawant’s stupidity with just a head shake.

(Picture Credit: NDTV)

Also Read : Rumours and Misinformation Penetrate Deep into Social Media Networks

Yamini Pustake Bhalerao is a writer with the SheThePeople team, in the Opinions section.  The views expressed are the author’s own