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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

Brazilië demonstreert tegen vaccinatiepaspoort.

Publisher’s rating: Het bericht klopt niet. De beelden zijn echt, maar van de Braziliaanse onafhankelijkheidsdag op 7 september 2021. President Bolsonaro voert een lange strijd met het Braziliaanse hooggerechtshof en had aanhangers opgeroepen de straat op te gaan om steun te betuigen. De manifestatie had dus niets met coronamaatregelen of een vaccinatiepaspoort te maken.

maharat-newsHealth & medicine

هل يساعد دواء "baricitinib" المعالج للروماتويد في علاج مرضى كوفيد-19؟

Publisher’s rating: صحيح

The review examines a social-media claim that baricitinib could reduce the risk of death among people hospitalized with COVID-19. It describes the drug as an established rheumatoid-arthritis treatment and reports that a Lancet study tested it alongside the hospitals’ standard care, including the antiviral remdesivir, rather than as a stand-alone COVID-19 treatment. The review says the trial was randomized and included 1,525 participants at 101 treatment centers across 12 countries in Asia, Europe, and North and South America. According to the review, patients were assigned to standard care plus baricitinib or to the same care plus a placebo. At 28 days, it reports deaths in 8% of the baricitinib group (62 patients), compared with 13% of the placebo group (100 patients). At 60 days, it gives mortality rates of 10% and 15%, respectively. These results support the review’s conclusion that baricitinib used within the studied hospital-care protocol was associated with lower mortality than the placebo comparison; they do not establish that the drug works as an independent treatment. The review adds an important regulatory qualification: the US Food and Drug Administration had authorized baricitinib with remdesivir for emergency use in hospitalized adults and children over age two, but had not authorized or approved it as a stand-alone COVID-19 treatment. It notes that the agency’s evaluation of the combination’s safety and effectiveness was ongoing.

dpaHealth & medicine

Les vaccins contre le Covid-19 dans l'Union européenne vont être remplacés par des médicaments à partir du 20 octobre 2021.

Publisher’s rating: C’est faux. L’Union européenne espère en effet pouvoir autoriser de nouveaux traitements contre le Covid-19 d’ici octobre 2021 afin d’élargir la palette des médicaments disponibles pour soigner la maladie. Mais l’UE prévoit d’utiliser ces éventuels traitements en complément des vaccins, pas en remplacement. Un programme similaire existe en Suisse.

dpaHealth & medicine

Vergunning vaccins loopt af op 20/10/2021, want experimenteel. Dan nieuwe geneesmiddelen.

Publisher’s rating: De beweringen in dit artikel zijn fout. De vijf medicijnen tegen COVID-19 die in oktober op de markt zouden komen, zijn een aanvulling bij en niet een vervanging van de vaccinatiecampagne. De vaccins zijn ook niet experimenteel, maar voorwaardelijk goedgekeurd. De waarde van ivermectine als behandeling van COVID-19 is nog niet wetenschappelijk bevestigd.

Fact Crescendo CambodiaHealth & medicine

ថ្ងៃ​អាទិត្យ​ទី​០៥ ខែ​កញ្ញា ឆ្នាំ​២០២១ ត្រៀម​ៗៗ…​ថ្ងៃ​នេះ​ទទួល​បាន​ព័ត៌មាន​មក​ថា លោក ហ ស កំពុង​តែ​ឈឺ​ធ្ងន់ ត្រៀម​ចូល​បន្ទប់​សង្គ្រោះ​បន្ទាន់ ដើម្បី​ធ្វើការ​វះ​កាត់​នៅ​មន្ទីរ​ពេទ្យ​កាល់ម៉ែត្រ ខណៈ​គ្រូ​ពេទ្យ​ជំនាញ​សិង្ហបុរី​ឈប់​ទទួល​ព្យាបាល

Publisher’s rating: False

The claim said that Hun Sen was critically ill, about to undergo emergency surgery at Calmette Hospital in Phnom Penh, and no longer receiving treatment from Singaporean medical experts. Fact Crescendo Cambodia examined this specific social-media rumor, including posts from Facebook pages that circulated it in early September 2021. The review describes the claim as accompanying a photograph of Hun Sen lying on a bed under white cloth. The review says it used a reverse-image search and checked official statements or press releases. Its image comparison traced the circulated photograph to images published by Khmer Breaking in March 2018. In the original, two people in medical clothing were beside Hun Sen; the version used with the rumor had been cropped to omit them. The review says the 2018 report did not provide more detailed information about those photos. The review also points to Hun Sen’s public appearance at the virtual Greater Mekong Subregion summit on September 9, four days after the claim. It reports that he spoke with leaders from five other countries and that the summit was broadcast by state-owned TVK and relayed on his official Facebook page. On this evidence, the review concluded that he had not been hospitalized for surgery in early September and that the image did not show a contemporaneous emergency admission.

dpaHealth & medicine

Een studie van de universiteit van Oxford gepubliceerd in The Lancet toont aan dat gevaccineerden een 251 keer hogere virale lading dragen dan ongevaccineerden.

Publisher’s rating: De studie bestaat echt, maar de conclusies die er uit worden getrokken zijn fout. De onderzoekers kwamen tot de conclusie dat de gevallen van een doorbraakinfectie met de deltavariant een 251 keer hogere virale lading hadden dan besmettingen met de andere varianten die in het voorjaar van 2020 circuleerden. Het gaat dus over de besmettelijkheid van de deltavariant, niet over het relatieve verschil tussen (on)gevaccineerden.

The claim attributes a 251-fold difference in viral load to vaccinated versus unvaccinated people who became infected. The review says the study cited is real, but that this is not what its 251-fold comparison measured: it compared viral loads in breakthrough infections with the Delta variant against infections with other variants circulating in spring 2020. The review therefore distinguishes a comparison involving viral variants from the claimed comparison involving vaccination status. The research described was conducted among health workers at a hospital in Ho Chi Minh City affiliated with the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit. The workers had received the AstraZeneca vaccine. Of 900 hospital employees, 69 tested positive after vaccination; 62 took part in the study, and whole-genome sequencing confirmed Delta in 23 of them. The review reports that the study found viral loads 251 times higher than those in infections from March and April 2020—not 251 times higher than in unvaccinated people. The review also notes that the paper was a preprint and had not undergone peer review at the time described. It reports that the study’s authors themselves called the claim about vaccinated people having 251 times more viral load than unvaccinated people a misrepresentation of the data. Thus, the reported finding concerns Delta infections in vaccinated health workers compared with earlier infections involving other variants; it does not establish the relative viral load of vaccinated and unvaccinated people.