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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.

13,672 published reviews in this topic

dpaHealth & medicine

44% van de zwangere vrouwen kreeg een miskraam na inenting met het Pfizervaccin, blijkt uit Pfizerdocumenten.

Publisher’s rating: De bewering is onwaar. Het getal 44 berust op een lukrake en foutieve berekening. Een dubbele telling van een aantal miskramen in een document van Pfizer is afgezet tegen een willekeurige groep zwangere vrouwen en het aangehaalde document wordt zonder context gepresenteerd. Zulke conclusies kunnen er dan ook niet aan verbonden worden. Wetenschappelijke studies vinden geen bewijs dat vaccinatie voor zwangere vrouwen onveilig is.

THIP MediaHealth & medicine

monkeypox is specific to a gender

Publisher’s rating: Mostly False

Research from related reporting addresses the claim that mpox is specific to a gender. It distinguishes patterns seen in particular outbreaks from a rule about who can get the disease: one excerpt says that concentrated cases among men who have sex with men reflected the setting of those outbreaks, while also quoting a physician that transmission has “absolutely nothing to do with one’s sexual orientation.” This evidence does not support treating mpox as exclusive to a gender or sexual orientation. A separate medical case-report excerpt makes the distinction explicit: mpox can spread through intimate contact, but it is “damaging and inaccurate to link the disease to particular gender identities or sexual orientations.” It also cautions that its clinical report concerns a single patient and therefore has limited generalizability. The excerpts support rejecting a gender-specific characterization; they do not establish that every group has identical exposure risk in every setting.

Deutsche Presse-AgenturHealth & medicine

Tedros hat zugegeben, dass er nicht gegen das Coronavirus geimpft wurde.

Publisher’s rating: Tedros erhielt seine erste Corona-Impfung am 12. Mai 2021. Im Interview erklärte der WHO-Generaldirektor, dass er damit eine Weile gewartet habe, um gegen die ungerechte Verteilung von Impfstoffen auf der ganzen Welt zu protestieren.

The claim concerns a video in which WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus discusses delaying his COVID-19 vaccination. The review says the clip circulated with the allegation that he was unvaccinated because he was protesting. It distinguishes that claim from what Tedros actually said: he delayed getting vaccinated, but did later receive a dose. The review identifies his first vaccination as having taken place on 12 May 2021. (S1: “Ein Video, in dem Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus offenbar über sein Zögern spricht, kursiert auf Facebook. Er sei «aus Protest» nicht geimpft, heißt es dazu in einem Beitrag (archiviert). Doch das stimmt nicht.”; “Seine erste Impfung hat Tedros am 12. Mai 2021 erhalten, dazu hat er an dem Tag auf Twitter gepostet.”) The investigation checked whether the circulated footage was authentic and where it came from. DPA reports that the scene was from HBO’s documentary *How to Survive a Pandemic*, released on 29 March 2022, and says it watched the documentary through the Dutch streaming service NPO Plus and verified that the excerpt appeared in the same form at 1:36:50. (S1: “Sie wurde am 29. März 2022 veröffentlicht. Die Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa) hat sich die Doku über den niederländischen Streamingdienst NPO Plus angesehen und verifiziert, dass der Ausschnitt ab Minute 1:36:50 in gleicher Form zu sehen ist.”) In the documentary, Tedros connects his decision to wait with unequal access to vaccines, saying he wanted to wait until vaccination began in African countries and other low-income countries. The review also compares the documentary excerpt with a fuller print interview in *Science*: interviewer Jon Cohen asked when Tedros had been vaccinated, and the answer was “12. Mai.” The additional interview material explains that Tedros did not want to use his privilege to be vaccinated first and considered the timing appropriate when vaccine became available for medical workers in African countries. This supports a distinction between delaying vaccination as a protest and never having been vaccinated. (S1: “Ich wollte warten, bis Afrika und andere Länder in anderen Regionen, Länder mit niedrigem Einkommen, mit der Impfung beginnen. Es war eine Form des Protests.”; “Auf die Frage, wann der Generaldirektor seine eigene Impfung erhalten habe, antwortet er im Print-Interview mit «12. Mai».”; “Ungefähr zu dem Zeitpunkt seiner Impfung, im Mai 2021, erklärt er im Interview, dass dies der Moment war, in dem der Corona-Impfstoff für medizinisches Personal in afrikanischen Ländern verfügbar wurde.”)