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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.

13,673 published reviews in this topic

dpaHealth & medicine

Biontech-Chef Ugur Sahin und seine Mitarbeiter sind ungeimpft.

Publisher’s rating: Die Behauptungen sind falsch. Das Video ist alt, es entstand im Dezember 2020. Biontech-Chef Uğur Şahin fiel damals noch nicht in einer der priorisierten Gruppen, die zuerst gegen Covid-19 geimpft wurden, etwa Über-80-Jährige oder Gesundheitspersonal. Mittlerweile ist er geimpft.

dpaHealth & medicine

Un montage photo sur le Covid-19 preuve de manipulation.

Publisher’s rating: L’homme dans le montage photo est en effet un modèle. Ces clichés sont des photos d’illustration issues de banques d’images. Le fait que les personnes visibles aient été mises en scène n’est donc pas un secret. Ce montage ne permet pas de démontrer une quelconque manipulation liée à la pandémie de Covid-19.

The claim concerns a Facebook montage that uses the same man in several scenes associated with Covid-19, including a test, a hospital bed and a scene involving a body. The post suggested that reusing the man showed an attempt to manipulate viewers. The review describes the montage as five photos and says the scenes include a Covid test in a car, a hospital bed, viewing an X-ray and comforting someone leaning over a body. These are the specific images the investigation addressed, rather than evidence about a separate event or video. The review traced the photos using reverse-image searches. It reports finding them in Shutterstock collections under the user name PPK_studio, identified there as a photographer and director, and also on EyeEm and Adobe under the name Panyawat Boontanom. It notes that other images of the same man, including a staged couple scene in a park, were available in the collections. This evidence supports the finding that the man was a model and the images were staged stock photos, not documentary photographs of actual Covid-19 events. The montage’s use of staged images does not establish that the pandemic or its coverage was manipulated. The review distinguishes stock images used to illustrate a subject from news photographs documenting events, and concludes that the montage itself is not proof of manipulation.

dpaHealth & medicine

Geimpfte und Ungeimpfte geben SARS-CoV-2 gleichwertig weiter.

Publisher’s rating: Geimpfte Menschen infizieren sich deutlich seltener mit Sars-CoV-2 als ungeimpfte. Bei Untersuchungen zur aktuell vorherrschenden Delta-Variante konnte zwar bei Geimpften eine ähnlich hohe Viruslast festgestellt werden wie bei Ungeimpften. Doch Studien weisen auch darauf hin, dass die Viruslast bei geimpften Infizierten schneller abnimmt. In welchem Maß die Impfung die Übertragung reduziert, ist derzeit noch nicht exakt zu bemessen.

dpaHealth & medicine

Ugur Sahin, CEO van Biontech, is niet gevaccineerd.

Publisher’s rating: De video is uit de context genomen. Sahin was op het moment van het interview, december 2020, inderdaad nog niet gevaccineerd, maar dat had niets met veiligheidsoverwegingen te maken. Ondertussen is hij wel gevaccineerd.

The review examines an interview with BioNTech CEO Ugur Sahin that was shared on social media as evidence that he was unvaccinated because he had safety concerns. It identifies the clip as an old interview, uploaded to YouTube on December 22, 2020, one day after the EU approved the vaccine developed by BioNTech. Sahin did say that he had not yet been vaccinated, but the review says he explained that he was not yet eligible, citing legal reasons—not safety concerns. (S1: “Het werd op Youtube geplaats op 22 december 2020, één dag na de goedkeuring van het vaccin door de EU.”; “Sahin zegt zelf in het interview dat hij nog niet in aanmerking komt voor vaccinatie, en haalt hiervoor enkel juridische redenen aan. Hij heeft het niet over veiligheidsoverwegingen.”) The chronology helps explain his status at the time. The review reports that Germany began vaccinating people with high priority first, and that Sahin did not meet the government’s priority criteria. It also says the first person in Germany received a vaccine on December 26, four days after the interview. Thus, the interview supports the limited point that Sahin was not yet vaccinated in December 2020, but does not support presenting that historical status as evidence of a safety-related refusal or as his continuing status. (S1: “De Duitse regering is de vaccinatie begonnen met eerst mensen met hoge prioriteit vaccineren. Sahin had geen prioriteit volgens de maatstaven van de Duitse regering voor vaccinatie.”; “De eerste Duitse persoon kreeg het vaccin trouwens pas op 26 december 2020, vier dagen na het interview.”) The review reports that Sahin was vaccinated in January 2021 as part of a BioNTech vaccination campaign, and that he later posted a photograph of his vaccination on LinkedIn to counter false claims that he was not vaccinated. The circulated interview therefore did not establish that he remained unvaccinated: it showed his status before he became eligible and before his later vaccination. (S1: “Volgens een later interview met Sahin werd hij een maand later, in januari 2021, wel gevaccineerd, als onderdeel van een vaccinatiecampagne van BioNTech.”; “Op LinkedIn plaatste Sahin zelf ook een foto van zijn vaccinatie, om de valse geruchten tegen te gaan dat hij niet gevaccineerd zou zijn.”)

FACTLYHealth & medicine

Ageing starts from the feet upwards

Publisher’s rating: MISLEADING

FACTLY examined a social-media post claiming that ageing starts at the feet and progresses upwards. The review says it found no scientific evidence for that pattern. Instead, it describes ageing as affecting different parts of the body differently: the performance of organs including the heart, kidneys, brain and lungs declines, and the focus is not on one body part for everyone. The review cites the World Health Organization’s account of ageing as involving accumulated biological damage, declining physiological reserves and increased risk of disease. It also notes that these changes are not linear or consistent. The cited WHO material describes several conditions associated with ageing, but, as the review points out, does not specify that ageing begins in the feet. The article distinguishes changes that can occur in feet with age from the broader claim about the direction of ageing. It reports that foot skin, ligaments and fascia can lose elasticity and that skin can harden, while concluding that those changes do not establish that ageing starts there. The review also mentions walking for at least 150 minutes a week as a general recommendation for healthy ageing; it does not present this recommendation as evidence for the post’s claim.

dpaHealth & medicine

90 Prozent der Intensivpatienten sind ungeimpft.

Publisher’s rating: Eine Impfung gegen Sars-CoV-2 senkt zwar deutlich das Risiko, schwer an Covid-19 zu erkranken. Aber je mehr Personen geimpft sind, umso mehr Impfdurchbrüche sind zu beobachten. Anfang November betrug der Anteil von ungeimpften Covid-Patienten auf deutschen Intensivstationen rund 74 Prozent. Die im Sharepic verlinkte Auswertung aus Hamburg beinhaltet einen Zeitraum, in dem nur sehr wenige Menschen geimpft waren. Die angegebenen 90 Prozent beziehen sich auf die Monate Januar bis Oktober 2021.

The claim came from a Facebook post dated November 9, 2021, and concerned whether 90 percent of people in intensive care were unvaccinated. The review compares that broad claim with two different kinds of figures: national intensive-care data around the time of the post, and a Hamburg calculation covering January through October 2021. The Hamburg figure therefore describes a defined earlier period, not the situation on intensive-care units across Germany in early November. The review says the linked Hamburg analysis covered a period when very few people had been vaccinated. Evidence for those distinctions includes: “Doch ist es wirklich so, dass 90 Prozent der Menschen auf Intensivstationen ungeimpft sind, wie in einem Facebook-Post vom 9. November 2021 (archiviert) behauptet wird?” and “Die angegebenen 90 Prozent beziehen sich auf die Monate Januar bis Oktober 2021.” For the national comparison, the review uses the RKI weekly report published November 4, 2021. It reports that among intensive-care Covid-19 patients in the preceding four weeks, 53 of 425 patients aged 18–59 were fully vaccinated, while 257 of 746 patients aged 60 or older were fully vaccinated. Across the age groups, the review gives the unvaccinated share as about 74 percent, not 90 percent. It qualifies that calculation: the RKI data included only cases whose reported information identified the patient as either fully vaccinated or unvaccinated. The review states: “Demnach waren unter den 18- bis 59-Jährigen von 425 Corona-Patienten 53 vollständig geimpft.” It also says: “Über alle Altersgruppen ergibt sich ein Anteil Ungeimpfter von rund 74 Prozent. Diese Daten erhebt das RKI jedoch nur bei den Fällen, bei denen aus den übermittelten Angaben hervorgeht, dass die Patienten entweder vollständig geimpft oder ungeimpft waren.” The Hamburg figure was based on 240 people treated in intensive care with SARS-CoV-2 infection from the beginning of 2021 through the end of October; 85.4 percent reportedly had no vaccination. The review explains why that period matters: vaccinations in Germany began only at the end of December 2020, and Hamburg had no fully vaccinated people at the start of January. Most of the Hamburg intensive-care cases occurred in the first quarter, when few people were fully vaccinated. Thus the historical Hamburg proportion does not establish that 90 percent of intensive-care patients were unvaccinated nationally in November. The review gives the figures and chronology as: “Davon hätten 85,4 Prozent keine Impfung gehabt.” and “Die große Mehrheit der in Hamburg intensivmedizinisch behandelten Covid-19-Fälle wurde im ersten Quartal 2021 registriert - also zu einem Zeitpunkt, als noch wenige Menschen vollständig geimpft waren.”

המשרוקית של גלובסHealth & medicine

שני נערים מאותו בית ספר באנגליה מתו מאומיקרון

Publisher’s rating: לא נכון ברובו

The investigation examined Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s statement that two pupils from the same class in England had died of Omicron. It identified the boys as 14-year-old Muhammad Habib and 15-year-old Harry Towers, who attended the same school in Staffordshire. Their deaths were reported publicly in early December, but the investigation found that both had died in late October—not “that week,” as Bennett said. It also noted that Omicron was first identified in South Africa on November 24, after their deaths. The investigation compared the timing with the available evidence about the variant: it said the UK routinely carried out genetic sequencing of coronavirus and that, in October, UK samples made up 24% of samples in the global database. It judged that Omicron’s presence in Britain before it was identified was theoretically possible, but less likely. It also cited the World Health Organization’s confirmation on December 10 that no deaths from Omicron had yet been reported. Together, these points undermine the claim that the boys died of Omicron. The investigation distinguished that question from whether the boys died following coronavirus infection. It reported that an inquest coroner attributed Habib’s death to a brain haemorrhage caused by a stroke, in turn caused by coronavirus infection. Towers’s death was still classified as unexplained, although pathologists believed coronavirus had played a part. The evidence therefore supports that both boys had coronavirus, but does not establish that either died from Omicron; the investigation concluded that Bennett’s account was mostly inaccurate.

dpaHealth & medicine

Le COVID-19 n’aurait fait aucune victime parmi les enfants et le vaccin de Pfizer pourrait en engendrer.

Publisher’s rating: Bien que le taux de mortalité chez les enfants soit bien moindre que celui des adultes, il ne s’agit pas d’un taux zéro.

The claim came from a Facebook photo montage that attributed to Pfizer a statement about reducing child deaths “from zero to almost zero.” The review explains that the montage’s wording implied both that COVID-19 had caused no deaths among children and that vaccination might cause deaths. It examined those implications, rather than treating the quoted wording as evidence that the vaccine was harmful. To assess the claim that the virus had caused no child deaths, the review cited a UNICEF report from November 2021. It said the report recorded approximately 12,000 COVID-19 deaths among people under 20 across 82 countries; children under 10 accounted for 58% of those deaths. The review also noted UNICEF’s qualification that deaths among children and adolescents were rare and often associated with socioeconomic factors, including health-system quality, household income loss, and unequal access to prevention measures. On the vaccine implication, the review said there was no evidence that Comirnaty, the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, was dangerous to children, and reported that the European Medicines Agency recommended it for children aged five to 11. It also cited a World Health Organization statement dated December 7, 2021: the risk of severe disease in adults was ten times higher than in children, but children’s risks could also affect people around them. These points address the montage’s implication; the excerpt does not describe a separate investigation of the montage’s origin or provide underlying study data beyond the cited report and statements.

Deutsche Presse-AgenturHealth & medicine

Folgende Personen sind von der Impfpflicht ausgenommen: alle US-Senatoren und Repräsentanten des Repräsentantenhauses sowie alle Mitarbeiter des Kongresses; 6.000 Mitarbeiter des Weißen Hauses; alle Mitarbeiter von Pfizer (2.500), Moderna (1.500) und Johnson & Johnson (120.000); 15.000 Mitarbeiter der CDC; und 14.000 Mitarbeiter der FDA.

Publisher’s rating: Für Mitarbeiter der Bundesregierung im Weißen Haus und von Bundesbehörden wie CDC und FDA gilt eine Impfpflicht. Auch die genannten Pharmaunternehmen schreiben sie ihren Mitarbeitern vor. Für Angehörige und Mitarbeiter des US-Kongresses gilt jedoch keine Impfpflicht.

המשרוקית של גלובסHealth & medicine

אין הבדל בין אכילת פרי לבין צריכתו בצורת 100% מיץ טבעי

Publisher’s rating: מטעה

The review examined Keren Barak’s criticism of a proposed tax on sweetened drinks, including 100% fruit juice. Her tweet argued that if fruit is important, people should be encouraged to consume it as a drink as well as by eating it. The review assessed the implication that the two forms of consumption are nutritionally equivalent. It reports that Barak directed the fact-checkers to her remarks at a Finance Committee discussion, which she said had more context, but that her tweet remained published. The investigation consulted Prof. Ronit Endvelt, a Health Ministry representative at the committee hearing, and considered the ministry’s presentation from that discussion. Endvelt said that people commonly drink a full glass of juice rather than a smaller amount equivalent to one fruit, so a glass may represent the sugar and calories of three or four oranges or apples. She also explained that eating fruit involves chewing and digestion that take longer and promote satiety, while drinking juice passes through the system faster and leads to a faster rise in blood sugar and insulin response. The review further reports that the ministry presentation described even freshly squeezed, 100% fruit juice as similar to a sweetened drink in the amount of sugar consumed. It says whole fruit provides fiber and other nutrients that are absent from juice, and that the committee discussion did not establish the broader equivalence suggested by the tweet. The review distinguishes that tweet from Barak’s narrower hypothetical at the hearing: whether drinking some juice might be preferable to consuming no fruit at all. Endvelt allowed that a little juice could be preferable in that scenario, while qualifying that she would not recommend juice as a source of vitamins and minerals.