THE POLICE IN HUAIAN, a city in East China's Jiangsu province, recently arrested Hu Zunqin, who falsely claimed to be a medical expert in TV advertisements promoting stomach medicine. Beijing Youth Daily comments:

Hu is just one of the bogus medical experts who cheated audiences by making false claims about products they were promoting on TV. The most notorious of them must be Liu Hongbin, who was recently exposed as fraudulently claiming to be associated with a variety of respected medical institutions to give credence to the products she was promoting as miracle cures.

Many have called for Liu, Hu and others engaged in the same racket to receive harsh punishments because they were deceiving people into believing the phony products they were recommending could cure their illnesses. But while they should get their deserved punishments they are only part of the pernicious chain.