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PeakMetrics / Fact Checks

Health & medicine fact checks

Explore claims publishers have checked about health & medicine. Read their original ratings and follow the evidence.

13,667 published reviews in this topic

FACTLYHealth & medicine

Newspaper clipping about a man not passing stool for 25 years

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a circulating newspaper clipping that says a man did not pass stool for 25 years, allegedly because of a condition called “Luteo Cristo Diphallia.” The review traces the clipping to Kashi Vaarta, a local newspaper in Varanasi, and reports that it was published in 2017 for Holi entertainment—not as an account of a real medical case. The review therefore finds the clipping misleadingly presented as genuine news. The review says it searched the internet for information about “Luteo Cristo Diphallia” and found no results or information about such a disease. It distinguishes that invented-sounding label from diphallia, a rare congenital condition involving duplication of the penis, which it says has no connection to passing stool. It also reports that experts considered it probably impossible to live without bowel movements for so many years. The review’s account of the clipping’s provenance includes a clarification from Kashi Vaarta’s editor: the item was explicitly intended for entertainment. It also reports an interview with Jaya Prakash, the person pictured and an employee of the newspaper. According to the review, Prakash said he did not have the alleged ailment and that his image had been used for entertainment. Together, the reported origin, editorial clarification and subject’s statement contradict the clipping’s presentation as authentic news.

PA MediaHealth & medicine

Most generic sunscreens on the market – most of them – contain benzenes, which are a cancer-causing, which are a cancer-causing agent

Publisher’s rating: Misleading and partly false: Benzene is recognised as being carcinogenic, which means it does have the potential to cause certain cancers. However, benzene is not a standard ingredient in sunscreen lotions. A 2021 study did detect benzene in a number of products, including sunscreen – but these were contaminants, meaning they were not intended ingredients but there by mistake, and affected products were voluntarily recalled.

dpaHealth & medicine

Dit is hoe fluoride wordt toegevoegd aan water.

Publisher’s rating: De foto toont niet hoe fluoride aan drinkwater wordt toegevoegd. Ook is er een groot verschil tussen het gevaar voor de gezondheid van een onverdund chemisch product en de verdunde hoeveelheden die in het drinkwater zitten. Nederland stopte in 1976 met waterfluoridering.

The post presents a photograph of people wearing protective suits as showing fluoride being added to tap water. The dpa investigation found no source or location supplied by the websites sharing the image. Using reverse image search, it traced an older version to a 1999 Geocities page about protective clothing. That page described men in hazmat or gas suits working on a tank container on a railway; it did not mention fluoride. The review says the photograph’s setting makes water treatment appear unlikely, while acknowledging that the men’s exact task is unknown. The investigation compared the circulating image with another photograph that appears to show the same men: the suits, arm patch and other equipment match, and the men are working beside a similar tank wagon. That second image appeared in an advertisement in a Finnish magazine for safety services, for Viking life-saving equipment made by Trelleborg. The companies had been contacted but had not responded by the time of writing, so the review did not establish definitively that the images came from the same advertising campaign. An Uisce Éireann spokesperson separately confirmed that the circulating photo does not show fluoride being added to water. The review contrasted the disputed image with a photograph it found of a worker at a US water-treatment plant adding sodium fluoride. In that example, the worker wears a mask and adds fluoride to a volumetric dosing machine to measure the amount precisely—details absent from the circulating image. It also distinguishes concentrated fluoride from the much more dilute amount in treated water: citing an Irish Health Service Executive document, the review says the pure product is not for human consumption and, in the Irish case, is diluted by more than a factor of 100,000. The Dutch context is also relevant: the review says fluoride was added to Dutch drinking water beginning in 1953 to help prevent tooth decay, but water fluoridation stopped in 1976, principally for legal reasons. It reports that Dutch tap water fluoride levels vary by region from 0.05 to 0.25 mg/L. The article also notes that excess fluoride can harm health, including through fluorosis, and gives a European limit of 1.5 mg/L; this does not make the disputed photograph evidence of water fluoridation.

dpaHealth & medicine

L'Union européenne déconseille maintenant aux femmes enceintes de se faire vacciner contre le Covid-19.

Publisher’s rating: Non. Ces affirmations sont fausses, selon l'Agence européenne des médicaments (EMA), qui évalue les produits de santé commercialisés dans l'UE. Les recommandations sur la vaccination anti-Covid restent inchangées pour les femmes enceintes.

The claim was that the European Union had changed its advice and was discouraging pregnant women from getting vaccinated against Covid-19, supposedly because vaccination could increase infertility or miscarriage risk. The review traces many social-media posts to a Leading Report tweet published on 31 May 2023 and to an article published the same day by The People's Voice. It notes that Leading Report supplied no supporting source for its assertion. [S1: “La plupart des publications relayant cette information trompeuse s'appuient sur un tweet publié en anglais le 31 mai 2023 par le compte Leading Report.”; “Leading Report, qui se définit comme un service de « breaking news », ne mentionne toutefois aucune source pour étayer ses propos.”; “D'autres internautes se font l'écho d'un article, diffusé le 31 mai également, sur le site The People's Voice”] The review reports that the EMA directly rejected the claims in an email to dpa, describing them as false and saying they appeared to be part of a deliberate disinformation campaign. It explains that the rumor misrepresented a real regulatory action: the EMA's pharmacovigilance committee added heavy menstrual bleeding as a side effect of unknown frequency for the mRNA vaccines Comirnaty and Spikevax. The agency said that this action did not establish a fertility effect. [S1: “« Les affirmations qui circulent sur Internet selon lesquelles l'EMA déconseille aux femmes enceintes de recevoir les vaccins anti-Covid car ils 'provoqueraient l'infertilité' sont fausses.”; “ces allégations sont une mauvaise interprétation de la décision du comité pour l'évaluation des risques en matière de pharmacovigilance (PRAC) de l'EMA d'ajouter des saignements menstruels abondants comme effet secondaire de fréquence inconnue”] The review also says it found no recent EMA warning against vaccination during pregnancy on the agency's website or social-media accounts. For the safety context, it cites the EMA press service's reference to studies covering about 65,000 pregnancies, which found no sign of increased complications, miscarriages, premature births, or adverse effects in unborn children following mRNA vaccination. The review adds that later studies confirmed those findings. [S1: “L'EMA n'a par ailleurs publié aucun avis récent mettant en garde contre la vaccination anti-Covid pendant la grossesse.”; “Plusieurs études portant sur environ 65.000 grossesses à différents stades n'ont révélé aucun signe d'augmentation du risque de complications, de fausses couches, de naissances prématurées ou d'effets indésirables chez les enfants à naître à la suite de l'administration de vaccins à ARNm contre le Covid-19”]

日本ファクトチェックセンターHealth & medicine

コオロギ由来の成分を食品に添加しても「アミノ酸」と表記されるのみ

Publisher’s rating: 不正確

The review says the Consumer Affairs Agency did not confirm having answered that cricket powder could be labeled as an amino acid. It also reports that using cricket-derived material as an additive under that label may violate the Food Sanitation Act, because the material is not expected to meet the applicable ingredient standards.

dpaHealth & medicine

Australië ontdekt ivermectine als 'wondermiddel' tegen corona.

Publisher’s rating: Het Australisch geneesmiddelenagentschap hief begin mei de beperking op het voorschrijven van ivermectine op. Maar het is nog steeds afgeraden als medicijn in de preventie of behandeling van COVID-19.

The claim confuses a change to prescribing rules in Australia with evidence that ivermectin works against COVID-19. The review says the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) announced that, from 1 June, doctors would no longer face the previous restriction and could prescribe ivermectin at their discretion. That change concerned who could prescribe the drug; it did not establish it as an effective COVID-19 treatment. [S1: “Het TGA onderschrijft het gebruik van ivermectine voor de behandeling of preventie van COVID-19 niet.”] The TGA explicitly did not endorse ivermectin for either treating or preventing COVID-19. The review therefore concludes that the online claim of a newly discovered Australian COVID-19 remedy does not follow from the policy change. It also says the drug was not approved for COVID-19 when the earlier restriction was introduced in 2021. [S1: “Wat het niet betekent is dat het geneesmiddel nu als werkzaam wordt geacht voor COVID-19.”] [S1: “De beperking kwam er oorspronkelijk in 2021 om te voorkomen dat het geneesmiddel zou worden voorgeschreven in de behandeling van COVID-19, waarvoor het niet was goedgekeurd.”] On effectiveness, the review reports that evidence had not established that ivermectin helps against COVID-19 and notes that both the European Medicines Agency and the World Health Organization advised against its use for COVID-19 prevention or treatment. The prescribing-rule change should thus not be read as a scientific finding or endorsement of the drug for COVID-19. [S1: “Toch is de conclusie al die tijd hetzelfde geweest, ook na verschillende onderzoeken: het is niet bewezen dat het helpt.”] [S1: “De officiële richtlijn van zowel het Europees Geneesmiddelenagentschap EMA als de WHO is dan ook nog steeds om ivermectine niet te gebruiken bij de behandeling of preventie van COVID-19.”]

APA - Austria Presse AgenturHealth & medicine

Bild zeigt, dass unbehandelte Mückenstiche im schlimmsten Fall zum Tod führen können

Publisher’s rating: Das Bild stammt, anders als im Posting behauptet, nicht aus dem heurigen Mai, sondern wurde vor bereits mehr als sechs Jahren auf Facebook veröffentlicht – mit einem deutlich weniger alarmierenden Text. Das vermeintliche „junge Mädchen“ war zudem bereits damals eine erwachsene Frau aus den USA.

The claim concerns a Facebook post warning that a mosquito bite could be fatal if left untreated, illustrated with a red, swollen leg. The review traces the photograph to a Facebook upload from March 2017, not the May date implied by the newer post. It says the earlier post also warned about the bite, but its wording was less alarming: the original text referred to a threat to the bloodstream, while the later version asserted that the infection would cause death. The woman described as a “young girl” in the newer post was already an adult at the time of the original upload. The review reports that the original poster, a woman in the United States, had taken her daughter to an emergency department after swelling following a mosquito bite. It could not establish the actual cause of the redness, swelling, and sleepiness from the information available; the original incident had not been confirmed in response to the agency’s inquiry, and the medical expert consulted cautioned against diagnosing it remotely. The photograph and account therefore do not establish that an untreated mosquito bite would lead to death. The review also addresses the post’s portrayal of a “new kind” of mosquito bite. The expert explained that bites can cause local inflammation or allergic reactions, while mosquitoes may transmit infections; the review says the infections associated with the Asian tiger mosquito do not produce a distinctive reaction at the bite site and symptoms appear no earlier than several days after the bite. These distinctions do not support the post’s fatality claim.