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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

Kijk nou, de overheid schrijft dat vaccinaties niet beschermen tegen infectie.

Publisher’s rating: De screenshot is misleidend. Het gaat hier om de vraag- en antwoordsectie van het Rijksvaccinatieprogramma (RVP). De coronavaccins vallen niet onder dit programma. Hier staat dus: vaccinaties uit het RVP – tegen andere ziektes dan het coronavirus – verkleinen of vergroten de kans op een coronabesmetting niet. Coronavaccins verkleinen die kans wel.

FACTLYHealth & medicine

318 cardiac arrests and 178 deaths among athletes were vaccinated for COVID-19

Publisher’s rating: MISLEADING

The review examined a social-media claim that 318 athletes had suffered cardiac arrests and 178 had died after COVID-19 vaccination. It reports that searches found no credible reports confirming those figures as vaccine-related. The review’s conclusion is specifically about the lack of evidence connecting the incidents to vaccination; it does not establish that the listed events did not occur or determine the cause of every athlete’s death. The review describes finding an article titled “318 Athlete Cardiac Arrests, Serious Issues, 178 Dead, After COVID Shot.” According to the review, that article listed athletes who died in 2021 and linked to news stories, but supplied no case studies, medical or scientific research, or evidence that the athletes had been vaccinated. The review also says causes of death were undetermined in some reports, which does not establish vaccination as the cause. The review further notes that a website called goodsciencing was updating figures and linking young adults’ deaths and cardiac arrests to vaccination, but says the site’s “About” page did not identify its operators. It cites a Reuters debunking of a similar claim about athletes collapsing in public. The evidence presented therefore supports the review’s narrower conclusion: the cited lists and reports do not substantiate the claim that vaccination caused the stated number of cardiac arrests and deaths.

Deutsche Presse-AgenturHealth & medicine

Einige Chargen der Corona-Impfstoffe sind laut VAERS-Datenbank deutlich tödlicher als andere.

Publisher’s rating: Die Daten aus der Vaers-Datenbank sind für derartige Schlussfolgerungen nicht verwendbar: Es handelt sich um Verdachtsmeldungen, die von jedem eingetragen werden können. Der US-Gesundheitsbehörde zufolge haben sich von 11 225 gemeldeten Verdachts-Todesfällen bislang neun als kausal mit der Corona-Impfung zusammenhängend herausgestellt.

The claim concerns a video by former German member of parliament Wolfgang Wodarg. The review says he used a website drawing on US Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) data to claim that some vaccine batches were especially dangerous, including a claim of a 3,000-fold risk compared with ordinary vaccinations and thousands of deaths. The review examined whether those data supported conclusions about batch-specific harm. The review explains that VAERS entries are reports of suspected events, not confirmed records of injuries caused by vaccination. Reports can be submitted by healthcare providers as well as patients, relatives, and other members of the public, and may contain errors. It also quotes the system’s warning that reports alone cannot establish whether a vaccine caused or contributed to an event; entries may be incomplete, inaccurate, coincidental, or unverifiable. On that basis, the review says the database cannot establish how many deaths were caused by COVID-19 vaccination or identify batches that caused adverse effects. It reports that, by mid-January 2022, about 520 million doses had been administered in the United States and 11,225 suspected post-vaccination deaths had been reported; authorities had investigated them and found a causal link in nine cases. Those figures do not validate the batch-level conclusions drawn from raw reports.

dpaHealth & medicine

Het vaccineren van kinderen tegen COVID-19 is gevaarlijk en zinloos.

Publisher’s rating: De beweringen zijn grotendeels in tegenspraak met de stand van de wetenschap. Zoals tal van studies en het Europees Centrum voor Ziektebestrijding en -preventie (ECDC) reeds aantoonden zijn de coronavaccins ook voor kinderen veilig. Coronavaccinatie maakt kinderen niet vatbaarder voor het SARS-CoV-2-virus, noch is het nadelig voor hun aangeboren immuunsysteem. Er is geen gegrond bewijs dat vaccins auto-immuunziektes veroorzaken. Het klopt wel dat kinderen zelden ernstig ziek worden door COVID-19, maar dat is niet de enige relevante parameter.

The review examines claims made by Belgian veterinarian and scientist Geert Vanden Bossche in an interview with Blckbx.tv. He argued that COVID-19 vaccination could make children more susceptible to SARS-CoV-2, undermine their innate immune system, and trigger autoimmune diseases. He also called vaccination useless because children rarely become seriously ill. The review notes that the interview was shared widely on Facebook. To address the susceptibility claim, the review reports pediatrician and vaccinologist Petra Schelstraete of Ghent University Hospital rejecting the idea that vaccination makes children more vulnerable to the disease. It says vaccines do not provide complete protection but do protect children against COVID-19. On the immune-system argument, it distinguishes children’s innate immunity from immunity acquired through infection or vaccination: the review says there is no evidence that vaccine-acquired antibodies impair innate immunity or antibodies acquired after infection, and that the innate immune system is not dismantled by vaccination. The review acknowledges that children rarely become seriously ill, but says this does not eliminate risk. It identifies MIS-C, a serious inflammatory syndrome affecting multiple organ systems, as one possible complication, and reports that French and US studies found vaccination helped prevent MIS-C after infection. It also cites the Pfizer clinical study in children aged 5–11, reporting mostly short-lived side effects and no serious adverse effects, while noting a small, real myocarditis risk. US data cited in the review recorded at most four myocarditis cases per million vaccine doses. On the claim of autoimmune disease, the review says it found no evidence that COVID-19 vaccines—or vaccines generally—cause autoimmune diseases.

dpaHealth & medicine

Der deutsche Gesundheitsminister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) will nach eigenen Worten verhindern, dass die Omikron-Variante die Corona-Pandemie beendet.

Publisher’s rating: Der stark geschnittene Videoausschnitt reißt die Äußerungen Lauterbachs so aus dem Zusammenhang, dass sie in ihr Gegenteil verdreht werden.

The claim arose from a 15-second clip of Health Minister Karl Lauterbach speaking at a special Bundesrat session on 14 January 2022. In the clip, he says Omicron would not end the pandemic, followed by “what we will prevent.” The review explains that this short excerpt cuts off the words needed to identify what he meant by that phrase, while text overlaid on the video presents it as evidence that the government intended to stop Omicron from ending the pandemic. The review compares the excerpt with Lauterbach’s speech available online. Earlier in the speech, he said the pandemic might be brought to an end in Germany that year by reducing its severity, and described efforts to prevent a high, rapidly rising wave of Omicron infections. When the passage at issue is restored to its full context, Lauterbach says the scenario “we will prevent” is that all unvaccinated people become infected with Omicron. He then explains that such infections would not end the pandemic, because they would offer limited protection against future variants. Thus, the phrase about prevention referred to that infection scenario—not to preventing the pandemic from ending. The review also reports that Lauterbach discussed the possibility of further variants in autumn and argued for a high vaccination rate and broad immunity. The complete passage therefore addresses the limits of Omicron infection as protection against later variants and the continuing need for measures; it does not support the clip’s claimed interpretation.

FACTLYHealth & medicine

The list of tablets to be taken when infected with COVID-19

Publisher’s rating: MISLEADING

The post circulated a photograph of a tablet list and presented it as a set of medicines to take when infected with COVID-19. FACTLY’s investigation says the list included azithromycin and doxycycline, antibiotics that require a doctor’s prescription, as well as vitamin and zinc supplements. The article cautions that the list should not be treated as a self-directed treatment plan: it says medical advice is needed before taking medicines for COVID-19. A key point in the review is that ivermectin was no longer included in the ICMR COVID-19 treatment guidelines after their revision in September 2021. The article also says that a later set of adult COVID-19 management guidelines, revised on 14 January 2021, did not mention the tablets on the circulated list. These statements challenge the post’s implication that the listed medicines were an endorsed regimen; the review does not establish that every listed item is inappropriate in every circumstance. The review further reports that more than 30 doctors had written to central and state governments calling the prescribing of several named drugs and vitamin combinations for COVID-19 irrational practice. Its conclusion is that the medicines on the list should be taken only with a doctor’s advice, rather than on the basis of the viral post alone.