Nina Marji, a Facebook user, published a video on March 7 in which two individuals open capsules of two different medications, from which small nails and needles fall out. In the first video, a man opens a capsule, from which nails fall out, while drug powder comes out of the second capsule. The man in the video says that this is like playing a Russian roulette.
As of March 12, the post had more than 1,000 reactions and 17,000 shares.
The video does not present enough evidence to prove that the drug capsules contain nails and needles. The origin of the video is unknown, while trustworthy sources do not provide any information on Enterofuryl and Linex containing such items.
Video #1.
In the first video, the man opens a capsule of Enterofuryl. A Kazakh fact-checking platform Stopfake studied an identical video, taken from a different angle. The article mentions that the Enterofuryl pack shows signs of being already opened before recording the video, raising doubts that the author of the video opened the pack and replaced the content of the capsules with needles himself.
Stopfake also mentions that instructions are easily available on the Internet on how to remove the foil on the backside of a blister pack, take out the pills, and attach it again without it being noticeable.
Vox Ukraine notes that the man in the video only shows the backside of the blister pack, raising doubts that he could have removed the capsules from the frontside and replaced drug powder with nails.
Moreover, the Stopfake article mentions that finding nails in one capsule and drug powder in the other is suspicious. Enterofuryl is manufactured by a pharmaceutical company Bosnalijek in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Production process in Bosnalijek factories is fully automated and it is impossible to take out one or more capsules and replace them without stopping the entire process, which would pose a significant technical difficulty.
Video #2.
In the second video, a woman opens a capsule of a drug called Linex and shows that several small needles fall out. As a Ukrainian fact-checking platform Vox Ukraine writes, it is suspicious that the woman shows an already opened blister pack of the drug and does not open it in the video. Therefore, it is possible that she placed needles in the capsule herself.
The given video has also been disseminated on TikTok. Later, various users conducted an experiment by recording similar videos and showing that, in fact, there is an ordinary drug powder in the Linex capsules.
Vox Ukraine writes that there have been no reports in other sources about finding nails or needles in the capsules of either of the drugs. Moreover, the companies producing the drugs – Lek and Bosnalijek – have an extensive experience in pharmaceutics and it is very unlikely that they would allow nails or needles to somehow end up in the capsules. Bosnalijek manufactures medicaments that meet the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requirements.
Videos, showing the “discovery” of nails and needles in drug capsules, have also been disseminated by Indian sources. In this case, the conspiracy theorists claim that these drugs are a part of the plan to carry out a “medicine jihad” against Hindus.
Archive link: Nina Marji
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