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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

Fact Crescendo Sri LankaHealth & medicine

පස් හැවිරිදි දියණියකට ඇට මිදුලු බද්ද කිරීමේ සැත්කමක් සඳහා මේ දිනවල මුදල් ආධාර එකතු කරනවාද?

Publisher’s rating: Misleading

The claim concerned a social-media post asking for donations toward a 14-million-rupee bone-marrow transplant in India for a five-year-old girl from Monaragala. The review found that the post circulating at the time was old, not a current appeal: it was originally posted on 5 September 2021 and described a surgery planned for that year. The father told the investigators that donations had been collected and the surgery had taken place the previous year; he also said his daughter, Nilasni Ratnayaka, had died after the operation. He further reported receiving many calls because the old appeal was circulating again, and said the accounts listed for donations had been cancelled. Thus, the evidence addresses the specific appeal in the claim, rather than a separate transplant fundraiser: the father’s account, as reported by the review, establishes that the surgery and fundraising belonged to the past and that the child had since died. The review’s conclusion was that the appeal being shared “these days” was an old post and that the daughter had died.

dpaHealth & medicine

72 procent van de Amerikaanse volwassenen heeft een van de vaccinaties tegen covid-19 geweigerd.

Publisher’s rating: Het merendeel van de Amerikaanse volwassenen is volgens de CDC volledig gevaccineerd én heeft een derde boosterdosis ontvangen. Het klopt dus niet dat 72 procent van de Amerikanen tenminste één van de vaccinatiedosissen zou hebben geweigerd.

The claim under review was that 72 percent of U.S. adults had said no to COVID-19 vaccination. The review traces the figure to Andrew Wakefield, who said that adults had not taken the first, second or booster dose and attributed the figure to CDC data. It notes that the claim was repeated by NineforNews and shared on Facebook, without a further source in the NineforNews account. [S1: “Concreter zegt Wakefield dat ze ofwel niet de eerste, tweede of boosterdosis hebben genomen. Dit zou volgens hem uit data van de Amerikaanse gezondheidsautoriteit CDC blijken.”; “Zijn woorden worden zonder verdere bron overgenomen.”] To check the claim, the publisher says it consulted the CDC’s vaccination-rate figures and focused on people over 18, because Wakefield’s claim concerned adults. Using the CDC update dated June 7, 2022, the review reports that 76.6 percent of adults were fully vaccinated. It also explains that the CDC counted a person as fully vaccinated after one Johnson & Johnson dose or two Moderna or Pfizer/BioNTech doses. [S1: “Wakefield spreekt specifiek over volwassenen, dus keek dpa ook naar de percentages voor de bevolking boven de 18 jaar.”; “De CDC meldt bij de laatste update van de cijfers (7 juni 2022) dat 76,6 procent van de 18-plussers volledig is gevaccineerd.”; “Dat houdt in dat zij ofwel één dosis van het Janssenvaccin hebben gehad, of twee dosissen van het Moderna- of Pfizer/BioNtechvaccin.”] The review further reports that 12.7 percent had received a first dose but not a second. Among adults who were fully vaccinated, 50.3 percent had received a booster; measured against all adults, the review calculates that as 38.6 percent. It says 89.3 percent of adults had received a vaccine and concludes that the 72-percent refusal figure could not be derived from the CDC data. The distinction matters: the claim describes people who rejected any dose, whereas the review separately reports first-dose, full-vaccination and booster rates. [S1: “Er is wel 12,7 procent van de bevolking die een eerste prik heeft gehad en niet meer voor een tweede ging.”; “Van de groep volwassenen die al volledig gevaccineerd was, heeft iets meer dan de helft (50,3 procent) ook een boosterdosis gehad.”; “Dat betekent dat 38,6 procent van de totale bevolkingsgroep de booster heeft gehad.”; “Van de 18-plussers nam 89,3 procent het vaccin en bouwde dus wat immuniteit op.”; “De 72 procent die ‘nee’ zou zeggen tegen een vaccin is niet te herleiden naar de officiële CDC-gegevens.”]

dpaHealth & medicine

De uitbraak van het apenpokkenvirus was al langer gepland, toont document uit november 2021 aan.

Publisher’s rating: Deze bewering is onjuist. Het rapport is het verslag van een training die het NTI in maart 2021 tijdens de veiligheidstop in München hield. Het is geen draaiboek voor het verloop van het huidige apenpokkenvirus. Dat de datum van uitbraak in de fictieve oefening min of meer overeenkomt met de huidige uitbraak van het apenpokkenvirus berust op louter toeval. Realistische trainingen als deze worden regelmatig gehouden

The claim treats a November 2021 NTI report about a simulated mpox outbreak as evidence that the real outbreak was planned in advance. The review identifies the report as a fictional scenario developed for a training exercise, not an operational plan. NTI ran the exercise with the Munich Security Conference in early March 2021, involving international leaders and specialists to prepare for the consequences of a possible future pandemic. The apparent match in outbreak timing and virus type is not enough to establish that the exercise predicted or arranged the real event. The review notes important differences: in the fictional scenario, a terrorist attack caused the outbreak, and the simulated case and death figures were substantially higher than the figures reported for the real outbreak at the time. The exercise scenario specified 1,421 cases and four deaths by June 5, 2022; the review reported 780 confirmed cases in WHO member states outside endemic West African countries as of June 2, with no deaths linked to the new outbreak. The review also describes evidence that the real virus was spreading before the scenario’s May 15, 2022 outbreak date. It cites the WHO-Europe director’s May 31 statement that spread in Europe had been underway since mid-April, and reporting that linked likely spread to large gatherings in Belgium and Spain. Taken together, the exercise’s purpose and its differences from the real outbreak do not support the claim that the report was a blueprint for it.

dpaHealth & medicine

La variole du singe est en fait le zona, et est un effet secondaire des vaccins contre le Covid-19.

Publisher’s rating: La variole du singe et le zona sont causés par des virus distincts. Il s'agit de deux maladies différentes. Il n’existe pas non plus de preuve tangible d’un lien entre le zona et les vaccins contre le Covid-19, et encore moins avec la variole du singe.

The review examines social-media claims that the 2022 monkeypox outbreak outside Africa was actually shingles caused by COVID-19 vaccination. It finds that the diseases are not interchangeable: monkeypox is caused by a virus in the Poxviridae family, while shingles results from reactivation of the varicella-zoster virus, a herpesvirus that can remain dormant after chickenpox. The review notes that both can cause skin eruptions, but describes different typical patterns and other symptoms. To assess the vaccine allegation, the review reports that experts it consulted had found no link between monkeypox and COVID-19 vaccines. It also says scientific publications had examined whether vaccination was linked to shingles, but that a cause-and-effect relationship had not been established. Thus, the evidence presented does not support either the claim that monkeypox is shingles or the proposed vaccine explanation for shingles. The review also investigates a side-by-side image comparison circulated on Facebook. It traces the shared image of a pustule-covered hand to stock-image sites, whose caption identified it as herpes zoster, another name for shingles. The image had appeared in a 2021 article about monkeypox on The Health Site, then was replaced on May 23, 2022. The review says this supports the possibility that the image had been used incorrectly; it does not make the two diseases the same.

APA - Austrian Presse AgenturHealth & medicine

Während in Italien für Impfschäden Zehntausende Euro Entschädigung gezahlt werden, müssten Impfgeschädigte in Österreich mit einem Pauschalbetrag von 1.303,50 Euro auskommen.

Publisher’s rating: Auch in Österreich wird im Falle einer schweren dauerhaften Erkrankung oder wie in Italien im Todesfall aufgrund eines Impfschadens mehr als der Pauschalbetrag von derzeit 1.344,70 Euro ausbezahlt.

The claim compares compensation for vaccine injuries in Italy and Austria, asserting that Austria limits injured people to a flat €1,303.50. The APA review examines that Austrian figure and the rules governing compensation under Austria’s Impfschadengesetz (ISG). It says €1,303.50 was outdated: the Austrian Social Ministry identified it as the amount applicable in 2021, and the review gives the 2022 lump sum as €1,344.70. Crucially, the review explains that the lump sum is not a cap on compensation. It applies to people who have no lasting damage; additional compensation can be awarded, with further payments assessed individually. The law’s basic lump sum can be increased for days spent needing institutional care, and the review says costs such as treatment or aids must be documented for additional payments. It also notes that the lump sum does not prevent compensation for lasting effects that emerge later. The review therefore finds the claim misleading about Austria: it uses an outdated figure and presents a basic payment as the only available compensation. The supplied review does not give details substantiating the specific Italian amount, so this evidence supports the correction about Austria rather than an independent comparison of Italian compensation.

BuzzFeed JapanHealth & medicine

「歯磨き粉を放置しておくと蚊がくっついて捕れる」とTwitterで拡散した対策

Publisher’s rating: 根拠不明

The claim examined is that squeezing toothpaste onto a surface and leaving it out will make mosquitoes stick to it. The review reports that a social-media screenshot promoting this method spread widely in Japan, including an Instagram post dated May 29 that received more than 200,000 likes. The investigation traced the image to a Korean community-site post from October 2019, where the idea had also prompted discussion. This establishes the claim’s social-media provenance, but the article does not describe a controlled test of the method.