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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

Israëlische vrouw zegt coronavaccins zouden experimenteel zijn, grafeenoxide bevatten en gentherapie zijn.

Publisher’s rating: Hoewel een groot deel van de video bestaat uit meningen, doet Daniel ook meerdere foute uitspraken over de coronavaccins. Daarvan werden er velen al meermaals ontkracht.

The review concerns a video of more than fifteen minutes in which Israeli woman Ilana Rachel Daniel criticizes her country’s COVID policies and makes claims about the vaccines. The video was shared by the online platform BLCKBX and circulated further on Facebook. The specific claims include that the vaccines are experimental, contain graphene oxide, and are gene therapy. The review distinguishes these factual claims from opinions in the video, rather than treating the entire video as a single factual assertion. [S1: “In een video van ruim een kwartier doet een Israëlische genaamd Ilana Rachel Daniel een uiteenzetting met kritiek op het coronabeleid van haar land en enkele bedenkingen over de coronavaccins. Zo zouden die experimenteel zijn, grafeenoxide bevatten en gentherapie zijn. De video wordt gedeeld door onlineplatform BLCKBX en wordt verder verspreid op Facebook.”] On graphene oxide, the review says that the claim had been refuted before and reports that it found no reason to think the material was in available COVID vaccines. It adds a specific visual point: even a small amount would make a liquid very dark, making it difficult to conceal in vaccines described as transparently colored. On the gene-therapy claim, it notes that definitions vary, but says the vaccines do not fall under the medical definition and cannot change human DNA. [S1: “Een van de beweringen is het gerucht dat er grafeenoxide, een nanomateriaal, in de beschikbare coronavaccins zou zitten. Dat werd meermaals ontkracht, onder andere door dpa. Er is geen enkele reden om aan te nemen dat dit het geval zou zijn. Verder zou de aanwezigheid van zelfs een klein beetje grafeenoxide in een vloeistof het geheel gelijk erg donker doen kleuren.”] [S1: “Zoals dpa al eerder schreef lopen de definities van wat gentherapie exact is uiteen, maar onder de medische definitie vallen vaccins daar niet onder. Hoe dan ook: ze kunnen het menselijk DNA niet veranderen.”] The review also addresses the claim that the vaccines were experimental. It says that conditional approval in Europe did not make them experimental, and that development met requirements for efficacy, safety, and quality. It distinguishes continued follow-up from testing whether vaccines were safe: the cited ongoing studies were intended to examine matters such as how long protection lasts. The review notes those studies were scheduled to run until at most 2023 for Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson, as of its stated 1 October 2021 status. [S1: “In Europa zijn de coronavaccins voorwaardelijk goedgekeurd. Dat maakt ze niet experimenteel. Ze werden ontwikkeld op een manier die voldeed aan alle vereisten qua werkzaamheid, veiligheid en kwaliteit. Ze worden wel nog opgevolgd, niet om de veiligheid te onderzoeken, maar om te kijken naar onder andere hoe lang het vaccin werkzaam blijft.”]

dpaHealth & medicine

La liste des "effets connus" des vaccins contre le Covid-19.

Publisher’s rating: Le groupe « Alerte attentat Belgique » reproduit fidèlement les tableaux de l’Afmps, mais omet d’ajouter une précision essentielle à sa publication : l’agence fédérale parle très clairement « d’effets indésirables suspectés, par exemple des événements médicaux ayant été observés après la vaccination, mais qui ne sont pas obligatoirement liés ou dus au vaccin ».

The review examined a Facebook post by the group “Alerte Attentat Belgique,” which presented four Belgian medicines-agency tables as a list of known side effects of the four COVID-19 vaccines available in Belgium. The review says the tables reproduced the agency’s tables faithfully, but the post left out the warning that changes how those entries should be interpreted. The agency described them as suspected adverse reactions: events observed after vaccination that are not necessarily caused by the vaccine. (S1) The decisive evidence was the Afmps bulletin itself. The review quotes its warning that reported adverse reactions should not be taken to mean that a vaccine caused the observed effect or that its use presents a risk; robust conclusions about vaccine risks require detailed analysis and scientific assessment of all available data. Thus, the tables documented reports, not a confirmed list of effects established to have been caused by vaccination. (S1) The review also gives the relevant scope and figures from the bulletin: it covered observations through 20 September 2021, and the Afmps had recorded 12,991 Belgian reports of presumed vaccine adverse reactions in EudraVigilance by that date. It noted that one case can include several reactions in different categories, so category totals need not equal the total number of reported cases. The review’s central distinction is therefore between faithfully reproduced reporting tables and the stronger, unsupported interpretation that every listed event was a known vaccine-caused effect. (S1)

Deutsche Presse-AgenturHealth & medicine

In Supermärkten gab es keine Corona-Fälle, Hotspots oder Schließungen.

Publisher’s rating: Sowohl in Österreich als auch in Deutschland fanden Corona-Infektionen in Supermärkten statt. Mehrere Filialen mussten zwischenzeitlich schließen.

The post described supermarkets as a “pandemic miracle” because they stayed open during the pandemic, and claimed that no infections, hotspots or related closures were known. The review distinguishes the fact that supermarkets generally remained open from the separate question of whether infections occurred at particular stores. It reports that infections among supermarket employees were documented in both Austria and Germany, and that some stores temporarily closed.

dpaHealth & medicine

Kroatië stopt met vaccineren.

Publisher’s rating: De beweringen rond dit statement zijn onwaar. Hoewel de president van Kroatië kritisch is tegenover de media en bepaalde maatregelen tegen COVID-19, is hij niet tegen vaccinatie. Kroatië is niet gestopt met vaccineren.

Vera FilesHealth & medicine

Using antiperspirants cause breast cancer.

Publisher’s rating: False

Related reporting addresses the same claim: whether antiperspirants cause breast cancer. One article explains that aluminum salts in antiperspirants temporarily plug sweat glands and says concern about breast cancer arose partly because cancers were observed more often in the breast area nearest the armpit. It reports that the American Cancer Society sees “very little scientific evidence” supporting the claimed link and says more recent research has continued to challenge it. The excerpt does not describe the methods or results of individual studies, so it cannot establish their details or independently assess their quality. A separate article states that the claim about aluminum in antiperspirants causing breast cancer has been extensively studied and consistently disproven. Together, these excerpts provide evidence against the claim, while the supplied material does not include primary studies or a detailed review of the underlying research. The evidence supports the conclusion that the claimed causal link is not established; it does not show that these excerpts investigated every antiperspirant ingredient or every possible health effect.