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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

6,2 miljoen mensen in Nederland niet of niet volledig gevaccineerd

Publisher’s rating: Het bericht is onjuist. Het aantal mensen dat niet of onvolledig gevaccineeerd is en hier wel voor in aanmerking komt ligt zeker onder de 6 miljoen. De Duitse cijfers en die van RIVM berekenen op basis van verschillende bevolkingsgroepen, wat het verschil verklaart. De 1,8 miljoen waar Hugo de Jonge over sprak in een persconferentie gaat over het aantal mensen dat zowel ongevaccineerd is als nooit eerder besmet is geweest met het coronavirus.

dpaHealth & medicine

Meer gevaccineerden worden ziek, moeten naar de ziekenhuis en overlijden.

Publisher’s rating: De presentatie van het cijfermateriaal is zeer misleidend en laat de nodige context weg. Het feit dat meer gevaccineerden besmet geraken met de deltavariant is te wijten aan het feit dat er veel meer gevaccineerde dan ongevaccineerde vijftigplussers in Engeland zijn. Het aandeel besmettingen, hospitalisaties en overlijdens is wel degelijk groter bij ongevaccineerden dan bij gevaccineerden.

The claim drew on a Public Health England table that listed Delta infections, hospitalizations, and deaths by vaccination status. The dpa review says the Facebook post presented these as absolute counts without the population context needed to compare the groups. It examined the figures for people over 50 in England, a group in which vaccination was widespread: 95.7% had received at least one dose, leaving roughly twenty times as many vaccinated as unvaccinated people. The review compared the reported counts with estimated population totals for each vaccination group. Although there were more vaccinated than unvaccinated people over 50 among those infected—58,319 versus 6,724—the proportions were 0.286% and 0.741%, respectively. The same comparison favored a lower proportion among vaccinated people for emergency-department visits (0.014% versus 0.101%), admissions following such visits (0.007% versus 0.056%), and deaths within 28 days of a positive test (0.006% versus 0.048%). The review also distinguishes a separate death-count comparison in the post: those figures covered the whole population, not just people over 50. It reports 1,233 deaths among 40,019,898 people vaccinated at least once and 456 among 16,530,240 unvaccinated people, with both totals amounting to 0.003% of their respective groups. The article describes its calculations as estimates based on official figures at particular points in time and notes that the underlying counts could vary somewhat.

dpaHealth & medicine

Amerikaanse geneesmiddelen autoriteit heeft toegegeven dat de coronavaccins twee mensen dood om er één te redden.

Publisher’s rating: Een man zei deze dingen effectief tijdens een vergadering georganiseerd door de FDA, maar hij zelf heeft geen enkele band met het geneesmiddelenagentschap. Het is dan ook geen standpunt van de FDA.

The claim that the FDA acknowledged vaccines killed two people for every person they saved stems from remarks by Steve Kirsch at a meeting of the agency’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products advisory committee on September 17, 2021. The meeting concerned whether Pfizer’s vaccine should be approved for a third dose. Kirsch spoke during the public-comment portion; the review says he had no connection to the FDA, so his remarks were not an agency statement. [S1: “De bron van de uitspraak is terug te leiden naar een vergadering van het FDA-adviescomité 'Vaccines and Related Biological Products' op 17 september 2021. Het onderwerp was een discussie of het Pfizervaccin al dan niet kan worden goedgekeurd voor een derde vaccindosis.”; “Elke vergadering van een FDA-adviescomité laat ook de ruimte voor burgers om te spreken. Het is via die weg dat Kirsch het woord nam.”] The review reports that at about 4:20:30 in the meeting, Kirsch said vaccines killed more people than they saved. About a minute later, he displayed a table asserting that two people died for each life saved. The review traces that figure to VAERS, but notes that reports in the database are not proof that a reported event was caused by vaccination. [S1: “Omstreeks 4:20:30 zegt Steve Kirsch inderdaad dat de coronavaccins meer mensen doden dan dat ze er redden.”; “Even later, rond 4:21:23, toont hij een tabel waar staat dat er 2 mensen sterven voor elk leven dat er gered wordt. Daarvoor beroept Kirsch zich op VAERS.”] The key distinction is between a public speaker’s claim and an official FDA position: Kirsch made the assertion at an FDA-organized meeting, but the review says he was not affiliated with the agency. It also cautions that the figures he cited relied on adverse-event reports whose causation was not established. [S1: “Maar Kirsch heeft geen enkele band met de FDA.”; “Zo'n melding is geen sluitend bewijs dat de gemelde bijwerking ook effectief het gevolg is van een inenting.”]

Vishvas NewsHealth & medicine

অলপ ফিটকিৰি, অলপ পটাছ, এচামুচ নিমখ, দেশীয় জালুক লওঁক। সেইবোৰ একেলগে গুৰি কৰক আৰু বিষ হৈ থকা দাঁতত অলপ প্ৰয়োগ কৰক আৰু পাঁচ মিনিটৰ পিছত নেমু পানীৰে আপোনাৰ মুখ ধুঁৱক। দাঁতৰ বিষৰ পৰা আৰোগ্য লাভ কৰিব।

Publisher’s rating: MISLEADING

dpaHealth & medicine

Plus de 25.000 décès post-vaccination contre le Covid-19 en Europe.

Publisher’s rating: On ne dénombre pas « plus de 25.000 décès » liés à l’administration des vaccins contre le Covid-19 dans l’Union européenne. Les auteurs du message et de l’article interprètent mal les chiffres publiés dans EudraVigilance, la base de données européenne des rapports d’effets indésirables « susceptibles d’être liés » à l’utilisation de médicaments.

The claim originated in a Facebook post sharing a table attributed to Résistance-Mondiale.com. It asserted that 25,248 deaths were linked to Covid-19 vaccines in the EU by 18 September 2021. The dpa review examined how the table was constructed and what EudraVigilance records mean. The table added up fatal outcomes reported for different reaction categories; the review notes that this calculation can produce a total above 25,000, but the reports are not established vaccine-caused deaths. The review quotes the European Medicines Agency’s warnings that EudraVigilance records suspected side effects—medical events observed after vaccination that are not necessarily caused by it. The database also reports fatal outcomes for reaction groups and individual reactions, rather than a total of unique fatal cases. One case may list multiple suspected effects, so adding category totals overcounts cases; reports may also contain duplicates that EMA checks during scientific assessment. As a comparison, the review cites EMA safety-update figures for 2 September 2021: 4,714 fatal-outcome reports for Comirnaty, 1,149 for Vaxzevria, 447 for Spikevax and 138 for Janssen. These are reports, not confirmed causal deaths. The review says fewer than 6,500 such deaths had been recorded in early September and that the number could not plausibly have quadrupled in two weeks. Its evidence therefore addresses the claim’s specific date and the mistaken interpretation of report counts, rather than denying that fatal outcomes were reported after vaccination.

dpaHealth & medicine

De Duitse Artsenvereniging Nordrhein waarschuwt in een brief voor een derde inenting met coronavaccin. Er is geen aanbeveling om een herhaalde inenting te doen.

Publisher’s rating: De brief is echt maar toch mist het bericht de nodige context. Via de brief wou de Noordrijnse artsenvereniging verduidelijken dat op dat moment de beslissing om al dan niet een herhalingsvaccinatie toe te dienen geval per geval beslist moest worden. Het was niet de bedoeling om een algemene waarschuwing uit te vaardigen. Er was ook geen overlijden gerelateerd aan een herhalingsvaccinatie.

The claim concerns a real letter from the Nordrhein doctors’ association, dated 7 September 2021, about complications following a booster vaccination at a care home in Oberhausen. The review says the letter was shared on social media alongside claims that boosters had no approval or recommendation and had caused severe reactions, resuscitations and a death. The association clarified two days later that its letter was not intended as a general warning: it was reminding doctors that the decision to give a booster then had to be made individually and justified for each patient. The review also checks the reported death against a statement from the Kassenärztliche Vereinigung Nordrhein. It reports that a death occurred at the care home, but the person was receiving palliative care and had not received a third dose. Two people were resuscitated, but they had already been ill. Thus, the reported death was not attributed to a booster, and the incidents did not establish a general warning against booster vaccination. The post’s broader assertion that boosters had no approval or recommendation also omitted the policy context. The review reports that Germany had begun offering boosters to certain groups, including care-home residents, people over 80 and immunocompromised people. It therefore distinguishes the association’s case-by-case guidance from a blanket position against repeat vaccination.

dpaHealth & medicine

La FDA américaine déclare que les vaccins contre le Covid-19 tuent plus de personnes qu'ils n'en sauvent.

Publisher’s rating: L’affirmation selon laquelle les vaccins contre le Covid-19 tueraient plus de gens qu’ils n’en sauvent a été formulée par une personne sans lien avec la FDA, l'administration américaine des denrées alimentaires et des médicaments, lors d’une audience ouverte au publique. La FDA n’a donc jamais déclaré une telle chose, contrairement à ce que laisse entendre le tweet partagé sur Facebook.