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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.

13,668 published reviews in this topic

dpaHealth & medicine

De CDC-directeur gaf net toe dat dr. Fauci COVID creëerde in een Chinees lab met behulp van Amerikaans belastinggeld en er vervolgens over loog tegen het Congres.

Publisher’s rating: Voormalig CDC-directeur Robert Redfield deed deze uitspraken niet. Redfield is er wel van overtuigd dat het coronavirus door de mens gemaakt en uit een lab gelekt is, maar zegt niet dat Fauci persoonlijk hiervoor verantwoordelijk zou zijn en hiervoor belastinggeld gebruikt zou hebben.

dpaHealth & medicine

Die Existenz von Viren ist nicht erwiesen, ihnen zugeschriebene Krankheiten entstehen auf andere Art.

Publisher’s rating: Es gibt Viren. Wissenschaftler lassen an ihrer Existenz keinen Zweifel.

The review examines a claim circulated in a Luxembourg Facebook post that disease-causing viruses are only a theory and have never been proven to exist. The post relied on an interview published by the Austrian website Auf1 with German engineer Marvin Haberland. In the interview, Haberland accepted that diseases occur but rejected the idea that a transmissible pathogen causes them, suggesting factors such as environmental exposures, toxins, diet, stress and psychosomatic causes instead. The review identifies this as the specific argument it assesses, rather than treating the mere existence of illness as disputed. The central evidence concerns a dispute over whether measles virus had been demonstrated. A medical student submitted six scientific papers in response to a biologist’s public offer of a €100,000 prize for a publication proving measles virus existed and establishing its diameter. In March 2015, the Ravensburg Regional Court found that the evidence established the virus’s existence. The Stuttgart Higher Regional Court later reversed the outcome on the prize claim, but the review explains that this was because the offer required one publication and the student had submitted six—not because the court found viruses nonexistent. The review quotes the appeal court affirming that, taken together, the papers proved measles virus’s existence and its disease-causing properties. The review also reports that microbiologist Andreas Podbielski, appointed as an expert in the proceedings, found no scientific article denying measles virus’s existence and described it as accepted by the overwhelming majority of specialists. It cites the virus’s fully available genomic information and the combined evidence in the six papers as grounds for identifying it beyond reasonable doubt. On the proposed psychosomatic explanation, the review argues that it cannot account for measles outbreaks with consistent incubation periods and disease courses across different cultural settings, or explain why vaccination can prevent the disease. These points address the specific alternative explanation in the interview, while the judicial record and scientific evidence address the broader claim that viruses have not been demonstrated.

فکت‌نامهHealth & medicine

فکت‌ها و ابهام‌ها درباره ادعای مسمومیت دانش‌آموزان با نفتالین و قرص برنج

Publisher’s rating: محمدحسن آصفری، عضو کمیته حقیقت‌یاب بررسی علل مسمومیت دانش آموزان، می‌گوید بخشی از مسمومیت‌های سریالی دانش‌آموزان ناشی از استفاده از نفتالین و ماده‌ای به نام برنج بوده. او درباره اینکه این مواد سمی چگونه، در چه محیط‌هایی (کلاس یا حیاط مدرسه) و با چه میزانی استفاده شده‌اند، توضیحی نداد.

PA MediaHealth & medicine

Junior doctors can ‘make more serving coffee than saving patients’.

Publisher’s rating: Needs context: The BMA chose to compare one complicated pay packet to another so there needs to be more context given with this statement. Junior doctors have a basic wage of £29,384, equivalent to £14.09 per hour for a 40-hour week, which is supplemented by payments for working antisocial hours and weekend shifts as well as an allowance if they work an on-call rota. Meanwhile not all baristas at Pret a Manger can earn £14.10 an hour, this is the top end wage based on their location, experience and a potential weekly bonus. The BMA’s analysis on doctor pay is based on basic pay and does not take into account any additional payments – if it were to compare a Pret barista wage on the same basis, the basic barista wage ranges from £11.20 to £12.85 per hour.

El Detector / Univision NoticiasHealth & medicine

En México no se produce ni se consume fentanilo,

Publisher’s rating: Falso

The claim concerned a statement by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador at his March 9, 2023, morning press conference: “Aquí nosotros no producimos fentanilo y nosotros no tenemos consumo de fentanilo.” The review assessed both parts of that assertion—production and consumption in Mexico—rather than a claim about fentanyl use or manufacture in another country. For production, the review says its investigators searched Google using the terms “producción fentanilo México.” They found a United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime publication describing the dismantling of a synthetic-drug laboratory in Mexico City in 2021 and reporting that Mexican cartels’ role in illicit fentanyl manufacture and tablet production may have contributed to expanded trafficking northward. The review also cites a 2022 InSight Crime report about Sinaloa Cartel and CJNG suppliers for fentanyl production in Mexico, and a February 2023 analysis that described Mexico as increasingly a place of production. Separately, it recounts the Mexican army’s announcement that it had seized more than half a million fentanyl pills at what it called the largest synthetic-drug laboratory discovered to that date. On consumption, the review cites a report from Mexico’s Observatory of Mental Health and Drug Use that found fentanyl-consumption cases increasing by 2021. It also reports that, the day after López Obrador’s statement, Observatory director Nadia Robles described fentanyl as a local public-health problem in northern border areas. Taken together, the review presents evidence of production and reported consumption within Mexico, contradicting both absolute denials in the claim.