Romania is subject to an 'information war' orchestrated by Russia, which is also affecting people's trust in doctors, said President Nicusor Dan on Thursday at the Gala of the Romanian College of Physicians - 'A Doctor for Romania. Medical Romania Matters'.

'The information war affects your profession. (...) It is not possible or it seems absurd that between a doctor who has done six years of college, has done three, four or five years of residency and who says one thing and an advertisement on the Internet that says something else, you should choose the advertisement on the Internet. How did we get here? How did we get to the point where people no longer want to vaccinate their children? How many people have died in Romania because they ignored science? These are extremely important things. We know where they come from. We are subject, like all of Europe, to an information war. We also know who is doing it - Russia. We also know why - in order to decrease trust in democracy itself, that is, in the possibility of people to decide their own future through discussions among themselves and of course that this has also affected the area of medicine, because it is a sensitive area for people', the head of state told the participants at the event.

He urged them to take a stand: 'Unfortunately, it is no longer enough for each of us to do our job the way we learned to do it. It is not enough, because our fellow human beings, the society we are part of, are subjected to an informational barrage that says something other than what each of us imagines is the right direction for this society to go. And, then, it is mandatory for each of us to get out of our comfort zone and fight for those values for which we were trained in school - for scientific truth, for medical truth. It is not easy, because, the moment you do this, entire networks will attack you and say that you are with the world occult and all sorts of other nonsense, but it is mandatory for us, for the society we want to build, to do this thing,' emphasized Nicusor Dan.AGERPRES (RO - writing by: Oana Ghita, editing by: Claudia Stanescu; EN - writing by: Catalin Cristian Trandafir)