The word “innovation” works magic not only on government officials but also on doctors. The healthcare industry constantly offers us fabulous new medical devices. For example, the prosthetics manufactured from alloys used in the space industry, miraculous implants from the forefront of the medical revolution etc. It seems that the future is already here. But there is a downside: in many cases “innovation” does not stand for “effective and safe”. It rather means “insufficiently studied.” This documentary tells the stories of several patients who fell victim to medical technology, be it a mechanical contraceptive, a hip joint prosthesis or a robot surgeon. The magic promised by doctors and advertising did not happen. On the contrary, these people's health was destroyed, and for some of them the effect of medical treatment is irreversible. The guilty party is not difficult to find. Mainly it is a protocol by which medical devices, unlike drugs, can get into clinical practice without sufficient safety tests. Pharmaceutical companies skillfully use this, discovering new markets for hundreds of billions of dollars.  Doctors take the bait when they hear the words like “innovativeness” and “manufacturability”, while patients who experience dangerous side-effects of state-of-the-art medical treatment simply do not have a say in this. The moral of the film is simple: it is always dangerous to put your trust in beautiful words, especially when it comes to healthcare.

Grigory Bakunov, Head of Yandex.Health will present a film about the dangers of promises that go hand in hand with new medical technology and will talk about the downside of untested innovations.