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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

4 piloten van British Airways overleden in korte tijd door coronavaccinatie

Publisher’s rating: Het overlijden van de vier overleden piloten is niet aan elkaar gelinkt, aldus de Britse luchtvaartmaatschappij. Dus ook niet door vaccinatie. Er is daarnaast geen sprake geweest van een noodlanding. Geen van de piloten overleed tijdens een vlucht.  Ook heeft British Airways geen overleg gehad met de Britse autoriteiten over het wel of niet laten vliegen van gevaccineerde piloten. Momenteel is er geen aanwijzing dat dit niet zou kunnen.

The claim combined several allegations: that four British Airways pilots had died soon after COVID-19 vaccination, that the deaths were connected, and that one or more pilots had died during a flight, forcing an emergency landing. The review reports that British Airways confirmed four pilots had recently died, but its statement expressly rejected the assertion that the deaths were connected. The airline’s spokesperson also said none of the pilots was flying when they died, and that no death caused an emergency landing. The available information did not establish that the pilots had been vaccinated. British Airways declined to give specific information about their vaccination status, saying vaccination was a personal choice. The review therefore distinguishes between the confirmed deaths and the unsupported claim that vaccination caused them: the airline said it could not link the deaths to one another, and did not confirm the pilots’ vaccination status. The review also checked the claim of an official response to the deaths. It reports that the UK medicines regulator, MHRA, told Reuters it had not been informed that BA pilots died after vaccination and had held no discussions with British Airways or another airline about preventing vaccinated pilots from flying. The review further says Snopes identified three of the four pilots; those three did not die within seven days of one another, although all died in May or June 2021. The excerpt reports no link between any of those deaths and a COVID-19 vaccination.

FACTLYHealth & medicine

Comparison of single-day COVID-19 vaccination in Modi’s tenure with that of Pulse Polio vaccination during Manmohan Singh’s tenure

Publisher’s rating: MISLEADING

The post compared more than 88 lakh COVID-19 vaccine doses administered across India in one day during Narendra Modi’s tenure with a claim that 17 crore children received Pulse Polio vaccination in a single day during Manmohan Singh’s tenure. The review finds that the historical comparison leaves out an important point: such large polio-vaccination days also occurred under Modi. To examine the claim, FACTLY says it consulted National Health Mission data on special polio campaigns from 2001–02 to 2014–15 and Ministry of Health and Family Welfare annual reports. It reports that single-day totals exceeded 17 crore on some occasions during Singh’s tenure, but says the same was true during Modi’s tenure, citing instances between 2014 and 2021. The review therefore disputes the implication that the polio total was unique to Singh’s time; its excerpt does not give the individual dates or figures for those occasions. The review also cautions against treating the two vaccination totals as directly comparable measures of performance. It says polio doses were readily available and that storage and transport logistics made them easier to administer than COVID-19 vaccines. Its conclusion is that the polio figure does not establish a contrast between the two prime ministers’ tenures: the review says more than 17 crore children were vaccinated against polio in a single day during both.

dpaHealth & medicine

Heropleving ziekenhuisopnames en overlijdens in VK zal worden gedomineerd door gevaccineerden.

Publisher’s rating: Het document wordt eenzijdig geïnterpreteerd en de constateringen op Facebook missen dan ook een flinke portie context. De reden dat de groep mensen met twee prikken het aantal ziekenhuisopnames en overlijdens domineert, is omdat deze groep veel groter is dan het aantal mensen dat nog niet gevaccineerd is. Relatief gezien hebben ongevaccineerden een veel groter aandeel in de verwachte derde golf.

The Facebook post used a photograph quoting a projection that 60–70% of people affected by a projected third wave would have received two vaccine doses. The review says the underlying document was real, but was not written by the English government: it was produced by SPI-M-O, a modelling subgroup advising the UK government, and dated 31 March 2021. The post presented the projection without important context. [S1: “Het document waaruit geciteerd wordt blijkt wel echt, maar dateert al van 31 maart 2021. Het is niet geschreven door de Engelse overheid, zoals ten onrechte wordt beweerd, maar door de operationele subgroep van de Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M-O).”] The review explains that the document’s projection reflected the expected size and risk profile of vaccinated and unvaccinated groups, not a conclusion that vaccination was ineffective. It says the report expected most people to be vaccinated by the forecast period and explicitly connected the large vaccinated share of projected hospitalisations and deaths to that fact. [S1: “In de begeleidende tekst staat echter dat hierbij de verwachting dat tegen die tijd het overgrote merendeel van de bevolking gevaccineerd is, is meegenomen. Er wordt expliciet aangegeven dat het niet komt omdat het vaccin ineffectief is, maar omdat zoveel mensen het dan al hebben ontvangen.”] As an illustration, the review describes the model’s assumptions for people over 50 in the UK: 95% fully vaccinated and 5% unvaccinated. It reports that the projections attributed about 60% of hospitalisations in this age group to vaccinated people and about 20% to unvaccinated people. Because the vaccinated group was much larger, those shares did not mean an individual vaccinated person faced greater risk. The review’s conclusion is that the post used absolute counts or shares without accounting for the much smaller unvaccinated population; in relative terms, the unvaccinated group had a larger share of the projected wave. [S1: “Er wordt vermeld dat er in dit model vanuit wordt gegaan dat 95% (23.750.000) van deze groep volledig gevaccineerd is, en slechts 5% (1.250.000 mensen) niet. Het aandeel gevaccineerden van deze groep is volgens de verwachtingen van de SPI-M-O goed voor zo’n 60% van de ziekenhuisopnames. Het aandeel niet-gevaccineerden van deze leeftijdsgroep voor zo’n 20%.”]

dpaHealth & medicine

Après 4 pilotes décédés, United Airlines et le syndicat de ses pilotes s’opposent à la vaccination obligatoire des pilotes.

Publisher’s rating: L’article partagé mélange plusieurs éléments liés à des compagnies aériennes distinctes pour en arriver à une conclusion erronée. United Airlines a convenu en mai 2021 de ne pas imposer la vaccination contre le Covid-19 à ses pilotes. La nouvelle du décès de quatre pilotes d'une autre compagnie, British Airways, a elle circulé sur les réseaux sociaux à partir du 17 juin 2021. La décision d'United Airlines était donc antérieure à cet évènement. British Airways a par ailleurs déclaré à la dpa que ces décès n’étaient pas liés.

The claim links two events: United Airlines and its pilots’ union agreeing not to make Covid-19 vaccination mandatory for pilots, and the deaths of four pilots. The review reports that United and the union reached their agreement in May 2021, as also reported by Reuters and the Chicago Tribune. It says the deaths at issue were those of British Airways pilots and that claims about them began circulating on social media from June 17—several weeks after the United agreement was announced. That chronology means the reported deaths could not have prompted United’s earlier agreement. The review describes the shared post as combining developments involving two different airlines, rather than evidence that United changed its policy following those deaths. It also reports that British Airways told dpa the four deaths were not linked to the claims circulating online. The excerpt does not establish whether the pilots had been vaccinated; it says the airline did not specify that.

maharat-newsHealth & medicine

متحور "دلتا" الجديد من كوفيد-19 يصيب بالسكري!؟

Publisher’s rating: صحيح جزئياً

The review examines the specific allegation that the Delta variant causes diabetes. It says the allegation was attributed to an article on Al-Manar and to Indian doctors quoted by the Telegraph, but reports that it found no Telegraph article about Delta and diabetes. It also notes that the medical sources it consulted did not report evidence establishing this Delta-specific link. The review describes Delta as a recently identified variant in India that was still under study.