Claim: A group of Indian doctors have invented a piece of advanced equipment to remove coronary artery blockages called Megavac, a mechanical thrombectomy system which removes blockages, mitigating the need for open-heart surgery.
Fact: Megavac was created by Dr Richard Fulton, who has also made the SonoGlo and the MammoMark. He clarified that he developed the Megavac but the product was not marketed well due to weak sales strategies.
On 16 February 2023, Pakistani celebrity Fakhr-e-Alam tweeted a 3D video showing inside an artery as the Megavac, a mechanical thrombectomy device, is being used to clear out the blockage. In the caption, he claimed that a group of doctors in India created a piece of advanced equipment to remove blockages from coronary arteries, and this procedure costs only 5000 rupees. He did not specify if he meant Indian rupees or Pakistani rupees.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check discovered that Dr Richard Fulton, founder of Vascular Development Corporation and its subsidiaries, is a radiologist and an inventor with over 60 patents worldwide. He was the chief of radiology at St Mary’s Hospital and Medical Center in Colorado for 30 years.
We got in touch with him on LinkedIn and confirmed that he created the Megavac in 2013 and that it was first successfully used in 2016. He clarified that due to a weak marketing strategy, the equipment was not marketed properly and that soon, he will launch newer and better models of the same. He also confirmed that just the equipment costs USD1000, and the procedure would only cost more. This is far from the 5000 rupees cost stated in the claim.
In this interview from April 2018, Dr Fulton states that in 2016, the first case in which Megavac was used successfully to remove arterial clots. “I was just like, ‘Wow! The darn thing worked! Saved a lady’s life!’ It was overwhelming.” he said to the interviewer. The same article mentions a weblink with the discussion on Megavac. This is the same weblink where the video in the claim is sourced from – capturevascular.com.
To conclude, the Megavac was not created by a group of Indian doctors in 2023 but by an American radiologist Dr Richard Fulton, who began his career as an inventor in 2010.
Virality
Fakhr-e-Alam’s tweet was viewed 478,300 times and received 8,864 interactions on Twitter.
Conclusion: A group of Indian doctors did not develop the Megavac, Dr Richard Fulton, an American radiologist did.