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.

13,674 published reviews in this topic

dpaHealth & medicine

Video toont verplichte vaccinatie in Rusland.

Publisher’s rating: De video is fictief. Het is een satire afkomstig van een populair Russisch YouTube-kanaal dat sketches produceert over actuele maatschappelijke problemen.

The claim concerns a video showing what appears to be Russian special police entering a building to force a resident to be vaccinated. The review identifies the clip as part of a longer production from BARAKuda, a Russian satirical YouTube channel. Its recurring character, Vitali Nalivkin, is presented as a fictional politician and government official in Ussuriysk, in eastern Russia, who attempts to solve real social problems through absurd, radical stunts. In this video, Nalivkin and a special police unit visit people who refuse vaccination and try to inoculate them by force. The footage therefore depicts a fictional scenario, not evidence of an actual compulsory-vaccination operation. (S1) The review points to clues within the video that support this interpretation. Nalivkin is described as chair of the local “Ispolnitelny komitet,” a body identified in the review as the Soviet Union’s highest legislative and administrative authority from 1917 to 1937. The video also belongs to a channel whose productions are sketches about current social issues. The review notes that the topic reflects real vaccine reluctance, but that real-world concern does not make the staged scene genuine. (S1)

APA - Austria Presse AgenturHealth & medicine

Die Corona-Impfstoffe wurden nicht vollumfänglich getestet und regulär zugelassen. Die Impfung verhindert nicht, dass man mit Covid-19 angesteckt wird oder jemand anderen anstecken kann. Es gibt schwere Nebenwirkungen und Todesfälle in Zusammenhang mit der Impfung.

Publisher’s rating: Alle in der EU zugelassenen Covid-19-Impfstoffe wurden im Vorfeld umfangreich getestet. Sie wurden mittels einer bedingten Marktzulassung zugelassen. Die Nebenwirkungen der Covid-19-Impfungen lagen zuletzt im erwartbaren Bereich. Es gibt bis dato keine Hinweise auf Todesfälle, die in kausalem Zusammenhang mit der Impfung stehen.

The review examined a social-media checklist claiming that Covid-19 vaccines had not been fully tested or regularly authorized, could not prevent infection or transmission, and were associated with severe side effects and deaths. It reports that the three vaccines then authorized in the EU—BioNTech/Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca—had conditional marketing authorizations. The review distinguishes this from an emergency authorization for temporary use of a vaccine that has not been authorized, and says the EMA assessed submitted evidence while maintaining EU standards for quality, safety and efficacy. On safety, the review describes reports available at the time, rather than claiming that no adverse events occurred. It says reported reactions generally matched those expected from authorization studies, while noting that some serious suspected reactions had been reported. Austria’s medicines agency knew of 43 deaths occurring soon after vaccination; the review says there was then no evidence of a causal link, and investigations were continuing. It also reports that EMA reviews of deaths after vaccination had not raised safety concerns. The review treats transmission as an open question in the evidence available then. It says it was not yet clear how far vaccination prevented onward spread; a study of the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine offered an indication, but its results were difficult to assess. Thus the review’s evidence supported the distinction between preventing Covid-19 illness and preventing all infection or transmission; it did not establish that vaccination completely blocked either infection or onward spread.

dpaHealth & medicine

400.000 coronatesten per dag in Nederland aan 100 euro per stuk.

Publisher’s rating: De aangehaalde cijfers in de afbeelding raken kant noch wal. In Nederland worden er zelfs op wekelijkse basis nog geen 400.000 mensen getest, blijkt uit de laatste cijfers van het RIVM. Hoewel het moeilijk is om alle testen over één kam te scheren, betaalt Nederland voor geen enkele test 100 euro. Met de nodige nuance is de doeltreffendheid van PCR-tests al meermaals aangetoond. Het bericht is daarom over de hele lijn onwaar.

The image challenged the cost of Covid-19 testing in the Netherlands, asserting that around 400,000 people were tested each day at €100 per test. The review traces the image to a Facebook post shared on 3 March 2021 and checks both figures rather than treating its annual-cost calculation as independently established: “Volgens de afbeelding worden er in Nederland zo'n 400.000 mensen per dag getest.” For testing volume, the review compares the image’s daily figure with the RIVM epidemiological update dated 9 March. It reports that the update recorded 361,400 tests in the previous week—not per day—and concludes that this contradicts the image’s claim. The article does not identify a source for the image’s daily figure: “Het is niet duidelijk op welke bronnen dat cijfer is gebaseerd, maar het officiële cijfer van het Rijksinstituut voor Volksgezondheid en Milieu (RIVM) spreekt het tegen.” The review also distinguishes government purchasing from prices available to individuals. It says the government used guarantee contracts with eight large laboratories, whose compensation was not calculated per test; for smaller labs, it reports a €65 government payment per test, rather than €100. The article notes that private individuals could find different prices, including €100–€150 for a PCR test needed for a travel certificate. Thus a consumer-facing price does not establish the price paid by the Dutch government. The review also addresses the image’s assertion that PCR tests establish nothing, stating that although the tests are not infallible, that assertion is false.

dpaHealth & medicine

En Israël, le vaccin Pfizer a tué 40 fois plus de personnes âgées que la maladie elle-même.

Publisher’s rating: C’est faux. Le message ne repose sur aucune évidence. Au contraire, les autorités israéliennes insistent sur l’efficacité du vaccin.

The claim originated in a Belgian Facebook post asserting that Pfizer’s vaccine had killed about 40 times more older people in Israel than COVID-19 itself. The review traced the assertion to an article on Children’s Health Defense, which attributed it to Israel’s health minister. The review says the minister had not made that statement; it also notes that Snopes had read the now-disappeared article. The claim’s attribution to an official therefore does not match what the review found.

Fact CrescendoHealth & medicine

Claim: Misinformation about H Raja covid 19 vaccinated picture

Publisher’s rating: False

The claim concerns an image presented as an H Raja tweet saying he got vaccinated “to avoid going mad.” Fact Crescendo reports that this wording circulated alongside a photograph of Raja receiving a COVID-19 vaccine; the article says a Facebook page posted the altered-looking tweet on March 9, 2021, and that others shared it. The review distinguishes the real photograph from the disputed text rather than disputing that Raja was vaccinated. Its account says, “எச்.ராஜா கொரோனா தடுப்பூசி போட்டுக்கொண்டார். தடுப்பூசி போட்டுக்கொண்ட புகைப்படத்தையும் அவர் ஷேர் செய்திருந்தார்.” (Raja received the vaccine and shared a photograph of it.)

maharat-newsHealth & medicine

"S Gene not detected" لا يعني أنك بمنأى عن كوفيد-19!

Publisher’s rating: صحيح

The review examines a Facebook post by Oxford biological research scientist Nada Mohammed about a PCR result showing “S Gene not detected” while other target genes are detected. Its central point is that this pattern does not mean a person is free of COVID-19: for some tests, it can instead be a warning sign of infection with the B.1.1.7 variant. The review says a change in the variant’s S gene can cause a deletion at amino-acid positions 69 and 70, making that gene difficult to detect with certain PCR tests. The review explains that an S-gene dropout is an indicator, not confirmation. It quotes public-health specialist Fatima Khazem saying that when a kit targets S but detects two other viral genes, “it may be” a new-variant infection, but “not 100 percent.” The review says sequencing is then used to check whether amino acids 69 and 70 are absent; that finding would confirm the variant, while their presence could mean the equipment does not target the S gene. The article also describes limitations in Lebanon at the time it reports on: specialized S-gene-dropout testing was not available nationally, and sequencing was described as the available means to identify and confirm variants. It reports that the Ministry of Health treated the result as a possibility rather than a definitive diagnosis, and concludes that the Facebook post’s warning was correct. Thus, the result can signal infection and warrant further investigation; it is not evidence of immunity.

BR24 FaktenfuchsHealth & medicine

Die Corona-Impfung macht unfruchtbar.

Publisher’s rating: Falsch. Es gibt keine Hinweise darauf, dass die Corona-Impfung unfruchtbar macht. Die Behauptung, dass ein mRNS-Impfstoff gegen das Coronavirus eine Abwerreaktion gegen ein Plazenta-Protein auslösen könnte wird von mehreren Wissenschaftlern und auch vom Hersteller Biontech als Falschbehauptung zurückgewiesen.