Skip to main content

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

Fact Crescendo Sri LankaHealth & medicine

FACT CHECK: දකුණු ආසියාතික රටවල් අතරින් ලංකාවේ එන්නත්කරණ ප්‍රතිශතය ඉදිරියෙන්ම?

Publisher’s rating: Misleading

The review examined a social-media chart that appeared to place Sri Lanka first in regional vaccination rates. The chart’s figures were dated July 1 and showed Sri Lanka at 4.3%, India at 4.2%, and Thailand at 4.0%; the review identifies the chart as comparing the share of people who had received both doses. The review’s central finding is that the comparison left out South Asian countries, so the chart could not establish that Sri Lanka led the region. Supporting passages say the chart showed “ජුලි මස 1 වැනිදා වන විට, ශ්‍රී ලංකාව ඉහලින්ම සිටින බවත් (4.3%), ඉන්දියාව (4.2%), තායිලන්තය (4.0%)” and that it “දක්වා තිබුනේ එන්නත් දෙකම ලබාගත් ප්‍රතිශත සංසන්දනයක්”. To check the regional comparison, the review says it consulted a UNICEF South Asia report from the end of May and vaccination trackers, including Our World in Data, using data through July 1. It reports that Sri Lanka ranked third in the region by the share receiving at least one dose, behind Bhutan, Maldives, and India. For the two-dose comparison, it cites Maldives’ health authority: by July 1, 191,441 people there had received both doses, approximately 36% of its population. Sri Lanka’s July 1 figures indicated about 1.1 million fully vaccinated people, approximately 5% of its population. The review states: “ශ්‍රී ලංකාව දකුණු ආසියාවේ තුන්වන ස්ථානයේ (භූතානය, මාලදිවයින සහ ඉන්දියාවට පිටුපසින්)” and “මාලදිවයිනේ ජනගහනයට අනුව එන්නත් මාත්‍රා දෙකම ලබාගෙන තිබෙන ප්‍රතිශතය 36% පමණ වූ අතර ... ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ ජුලි මස 01 වැනිදා වන විට එම ප්‍රතිශතය 5% පමණ වුණා.” The review qualifies the comparison: it says complete two-dose figures for Bhutan were not available in the material it examined, and notes that Maldives and Bhutan had been omitted from the circulated chart. It also cautions that Maldives’ population was about one-fortieth of Sri Lanka’s, while the comparison was based on population percentages. Its conclusion is that Sri Lanka was not first on the evidence presented: Maldives had a much higher two-dose share, while Sri Lanka ranked third for people receiving at least one dose. The review says, “භූතානයේ මාත්‍රා දෙකම ලබාගත් පිරිස් පිලිබඳව නිල දත්ත ලබා දී නැති බවින් එය නොසලකා හැරිය ද, මාලදිවයින, දකුණු ආසියාතික කලාපයේ අනෙකුත් රටවල ට වඩා බොහෝ ඉදිරියෙන් සිටින බව පෙනී යනවා.”

Neue Osnabrücker ZeitungHealth & medicine

Der AfD-Bundestagsabgeordnete Waldemar Herdt regt Corona-Partys für Kinder an. Die Durchseuchung der Kinder hält er für verantwortungsvoller als Impfungen. Impfstoff bezeichnet er als "nicht ausgeprobtes Gift". Zudem behauptet er, es gebe eine Impfpflicht für Kinder.

Publisher’s rating: Falsch! Eltern zu motivieren, dass die Kinder "Corona-Partys" feiern, um sich mit dem Virus zu infizieren, wirft nicht nur ethische Fragen auf, sondern kann sogar strafrechtliche Folgen haben. Das Beibringen gesundheitsgefährdender Stoffe gilt als Körperverletzung. Eine gezielte Infektion des Nachwuchses könnte also ein juristisches Nachspiel haben. Darüber hinaus gibt es deutliche Hinweise darauf, dass der Impfstoff von Biontech/Pfizer für Kinder ab 12 Jahren gut verträglich ist. Gleichzeitig gilt eine Impfung angesichts neuer Mutationen wie der Delta-Variante als geeignet, um die Pandemie einzudämmen. Falsch ist auch die Behauptung des AfD-Bundestagsabgeordneten, der Impfstoff sei "nicht erprobtes Gift". Der Impfstoff von Biontech/Pfizer wurde von der Europäischen Arzneimittelagentur (EMA) ordnungsgemäß auch für die Altersgruppe 12 bis 17 Jahre zugelassen. Von der Ständigen Impfkommission (Stiko) gibt es derzeit keine grundsätzliche Empfehlung, Kinder und Jugendliche zu impfen. Laut Stiko ist aber die Impfung von jugendlichen Risikopatienten sinnvoll. In den USA wurden schon mehr als sieben Millionen Kinder und Jugendliche zwischen 12 und 17 Jahren mit dem Impfstoff von Biontech/Pfizer geimpft. In Deutschland gibt es keine Impfpflicht - weder für Kinder noch für Erwachsene.

Fact Crescendo AfghanistanHealth & medicine

د ټولنیزو رسنیو یو شمېر کاروونکو ویلي دي چې په پاکستان کې د جمعیت علمای اسلام د ګوند مشر مولانا فضل الرحمان د کورونا ناروغۍ له امله مړ شوی دی.

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerned social-media posts saying that Maulana Fazlur Rehman, the head of Pakistan’s Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, had died of COVID-19. The review says one post was shared by a Facebook page called “Ghorzang Khabaruna” and had been shared 143 times. It concludes that the death report was false and that Fazlur Rehman had not contracted COVID-19. To support its conclusion, the review reports that Pakistani media said on June 24, 2021, that Fazlur Rehman’s COVID-19 test was negative. It attributes the test to concern about his health, quoting a party spokesperson as saying his condition was not good. The review also points to a tweet posted from Fazlur Rehman’s account on June 30, presenting it as evidence that he was alive after the death claim circulated. It does not provide details about independently verifying the account or the tweet, so that point should be understood as the review’s stated reasoning rather than a separately documented verification. The account also notes that Fazlur Rehman had tested negative in March. Taken together, the review’s cited evidence addresses both the specific claim of a COVID-19 death and the contemporaneous reports about his illness: it describes a negative test result, not a COVID-19 diagnosis, and cites a later tweet as inconsistent with the death report.

Boatos.orgHealth & medicine

Cientista da OMS vai ser condenada à morte por não recomendar ivermectina

Publisher’s rating: Falso

The claim concerned Soumya Swaminathan, then the WHO’s chief scientist, and a supposed death sentence for not recommending ivermectin for COVID-19 in India. The review describes the underlying event as a case brought by the Indian Bar Association (IBA), not by the Indian government. It says the IBA accused Swaminathan of misleading people about ivermectin and linked her tweet opposing its use to Tamil Nadu removing the drug from its treatment protocol. The review stresses that filing a case and securing a conviction are different things: “entre a ação de ‘processar’ e ela ser condenada há um oceano.” The review’s central argument is that a conviction would first require proving that ivermectin worked against COVID-19 and persuading an Indian court of that case. It reports that the filing relied on “pesquisas científicas contestadas” and says there was no proof of ivermectin’s effectiveness against COVID-19 at the time of Swaminathan’s tweet. On that basis, the review rejects the claim that the filing meant she could actually be sentenced to death; it also says a death sentence would be still more difficult to obtain. Its conclusion is that recommending against a drug without demonstrated efficacy did not constitute a crime. The review’s assessment is about the claimed likelihood and legal basis for a death sentence, not a claim that no filing had been made.

Mexicana de ArteHealth & medicine

“[…] en cumplimiento con las recomendaciones de las autoridades sanitarias debido a la alza (sic) de contagios en la Ciudad de México de COVID19, la producción de SIE7E en conjunto con el Pepsi Center WTC, consientes de esta situación y en solidaridad con todos ustedes les informamos que hemos tomado la decisión como empresas socialmente responsables de asumir estas recomendaciones cuidando a nuestro talento, staf y público deteniendo funciones a partir de este sábado 26 de junio”

Publisher’s rating: Falso

dpaHealth & medicine

L’ivermectine a montré d’excellents résultats pour traiter le Covid-19, les vaccins sont toujours en phase d’expérimentation, plus de 15.472 décès ont été recensés après une vaccination.

Publisher’s rating: Les informations contenues dans l’image sont soit fausses, soit sorties de leurs contextes. L’utilisation de l’ivermectine contre le Covid-19 n’a pas prouvé son efficacité, et a été déconseillée par l’Organisation mondiale de la Santé. Les chiffres sur le nombre de « décès », issus d’une base de données européenne, ont été mal interprétés. Par ailleurs, les vaccins ont été soumis à de nombreuses phases de tests, et les données supplémentaires attendues ne remettent pas en cause leur sécurité.

The review examines a Facebook image headed “Information importante avant vaccination.” It says the image claims ivermectin showed “excellent results” against Covid-19, vaccines remain experimental, and more than 15,472 deaths were recorded after vaccination. The article addresses those statements as claims in the image, rather than as findings established by the image itself. The review’s discussion of ivermectin says its effectiveness had not been scientifically demonstrated and describes the evidence as mixed: some small studies had encouraged hopes, while others found little or no effect. It also reports that the European Medicines Agency and the World Health Organization advised against using ivermectin for Covid-19 outside clinical trials while further evidence was needed. [S1] For the death figure, the review identifies the image’s source as a European database of reports of suspected adverse effects. It explains that the database records suspected events, not deaths proven to have been caused by vaccination. The article also notes that a single report can include multiple suspected reactions, so adding fatal-event counts across reaction categories does not yield a reliable total number of fatal cases. In that context, the figure of more than 15,472 deaths is presented misleadingly as deaths “after vaccination,” rather than as reports establishing causation. [S1] On the experimental-phase assertion, the review says the four vaccines then approved by the EMA had conditional marketing authorisations and had undergone clinical trials involving tens of thousands of participants. It describes review of available data by the EMA and continued collection of phase-three and longer-term data, including on protection duration and asymptomatic cases. The article’s distinction is that continuing data collection and monitoring do not, by themselves, mean that approved vaccines remained in an experimental phase or that their safety was unestablished. [S1]

maharat-newsHealth & medicine

المتحور "دلتا" انتشر في لبنان؟!

Publisher’s rating: صحيح جزئياً

The review examines claims that the Delta variant was already spreading in Lebanon. It reports that researcher Asala Lam’ claimed the variant had been circulating for weeks, but notes that she had no laboratory results confirming its presence. The review also quotes Rafik Hariri University Hospital director Firas Al-Abyad explaining that identifying the variant required genetic sequencing, which was not available in Lebanon at the time. Al-Abyad said that, without sequencing, no one could confirm that Delta was spreading in Lebanon. He considered it plausible that the variant had arrived because it had been detected in Turkey and other neighboring countries, and Lebanon’s airport was receiving international flights. That reasoning supports the possibility of arrival, not laboratory confirmation of presence or widespread transmission. The review’s conclusion distinguishes those points: arrival was considered possible based on travel and spread in other countries, but it said there were no medical reports confirming Delta in Lebanon. It therefore does not establish that the variant had spread throughout the country; the evidence described was an informed estimate amid a lack of genetic testing.

dpaHealth & medicine

Billboard Arsenal met claims over vaccins en berechting van artsen

Publisher’s rating: De foto is overduidelijk nep, maar bovenal is de boodschap die erop staat feitelijk grotendeels onjuist. De vaccins zijn niet langer experimenteel en (huis)artsen zullen niet berecht worden voor het toedienen van vaccins. Over de bescherming tegen transmissie van het virus bestaat nog niet voldoende duidelijkheid voor een definitieve conclusie.