This Text Message Detected Fake Drugs in Seconds

Felix Davis watched quietly as a nurse guided a mother through something almost miraculous: a lifeline on a phone in a place where power flickers like a rumor. The mother clutched a bottle of pills from a roadside stall and typed a message. In seconds, Ask Mary replied: “This medicine is fake.”

Everything runs on one brain: Ask Mary.

•  It’s a device-free hospital, essentially primary care redesigned as a conversation.

• Offline-first, so it works on a phone, a PAT, or a clinic PC.

• Human-in-the-loop, so doctors and nurses stay in charge.

• Secure by design, encrypted, consent-driven, auditable.

• Multilingual, respectful, and adaptive.

• Trained to upskill the very people who use it.

The result is universal care that meets people where they are, through a simple chat interface, using minimal power, minimal hardware, and maximal dignity.

Back in that same village, the mother’s chat didn’t just reveal fake drugs. It triggered AI triage inside Ask Mary, flagging infection risk. A local nurse reviewed the data and, within minutes, connected her to a specialist 200 miles away.

The same system lets anyone text a WhatsApp number to verify FDA-approved drugs, chat about symptoms, or talk to a digital companion who explains health conditions like a trusted friend.

MGH's work isn’t about gadgets. It’s about justice. Each innovation confronts inequality at its roots: maternal death, counterfeit drugs, unreachable clinics. That mother left her chat with a verified prescription, a telehealth appointment, and something she never had before: trust.

Now it’s your turn.

Meet Ask Mary at talktomary.org.

Dedicate a Patient Access Terminal in honor of someone you love.

Each one deployed brings care, dignity, and hope to a new community.

Because healthcare should never depend on where you live.

With Ask Mary, it finally doesn’t.