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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.

13,676 published reviews in this topic

ComprovaHealth & medicine

Isolamento não salva a vida de ninguém

Publisher’s rating: Enganoso: Em vídeo, pessoa sem formação na área de saúde mistura dados falsos e verdadeiros sobre os remédios atualmente indicados para o tratamento da doença provocada pelo novo coronavírus e divulga informações sem comprovação científica.

FACTLYHealth & medicine

Crowd with no social distancing at a shopping center in Old city (Hyderabad)

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerns a video of people shopping close together, presented as showing a shopping center in Hyderabad’s Old City. FACTLY’s review identifies the footage as showing New Anarkali Bazaar in Faisalabad, Pakistan, rather than Hyderabad. It reports finding the same video on YouTube under a title naming New Anarkali Faisalabad and finding posts by Pakistan users placing the video there before it was shared in the Hyderabad context. The review also cites a verified Twitter user from Pakistan describing it as a scene from a Faisalabad market. [S1]

NewtralHealth & medicine

El uso de mascarilla produce hipoxia

Publisher’s rating: Falso

Newtral examines a circulating message claiming that prolonged mask use causes hypoxia because people repeatedly breathe exhaled air. The message said this could cause dizziness and impaired thought, and advised lifting a mask every ten minutes. The article’s conclusion is that masks do not cause hypoxia: it reports that public-health specialist Francisco Guillén Grima explained that masks retain particles but allow gases, including oxygen and carbon dioxide, to pass through. The article also identifies pulmonary and cardiac conditions, sleep apnea, high altitude and some powerful analgesics as possible causes of hypoxia. The article addresses the message’s claim about movement and exercise separately. It reports pulmonologist Raúl Galera’s explanation that running increases ventilation, and Guillén’s qualification that a surgical mask can make breathing more difficult during exercise but does not thereby cause hypoxia. The distinction matters: the article does not say masks never affect breathing comfort; it rejects the further claim that such discomfort means a mask-induced lack of oxygen. The check also rejects the message’s advice to lift a mask every ten minutes. Its account of the rules then in force in Spain says masks were mandatory from May 21 in specified public settings when a two-metre distance could not be maintained, with exceptions including respiratory difficulties and activities incompatible with wearing one. That legal detail describes the policy context; it is distinct from the article’s medical explanation.

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and MedicineHealth & medicine

Taking zinc helps your body fight the novel coronavirus.

Publisher’s rating: Unknown. There’s some evidence that zinc helps your body fight a cold, but scientists don’t know if it helps ease COVID-19 symptoms. There is no evidence that taking zinc will keep you from catching COVID-19.

Deutsche Presse-AgenturHealth & medicine

Das Tragen von Masken zur Bedeckung von Mund und Nase ist nach Überzeugung von Kritikern gefährlich. Sie argumentieren, die Masken verursachten mehr Kohlendioxid und weniger Sauerstoff im Blut. Dies wird mit dem Wieder-Einatmen der eigenen verbrauchten Atemluft begründet. Ein österreichischer Praktischer Arzt behauptet auch, Masken förderten Lungenkrankheiten

Publisher’s rating: Richtig ist, dass Menschen mit bestimmten Lungen-Erkrankungen vom Tragen von Masken abgeraten wird. Es gibt aber keinen Beleg dafür, dass Masken Lungenkrankheiten fördern oder dass sie gefährlich oder unwirksam sind.

The review examines a Facebook post headed “Medizinische Information Covid-19-LV,” attributed to a practicing doctor in Styria, Austria. Among its claims were that breathing air under a mask increases carbon dioxide and nitric oxide in the blood, reduces oxygen intake, and that inadequate ventilation of the lungs promotes lung disease. The review addresses those claims separately rather than treating all mask types or all wearers as equivalent. For the claim about blood gases, the review describes a 2004 doctoral thesis on surgical masks: it reported a slight increase in blood carbon dioxide after mask use, but did not find increased breathing frequency or a fall in oxygen saturation. Thesis author Ulrike Butz told dpa on May 4, 2020, that the work did not establish health impairment. The review also cites the German Respiratory League’s distinction between professional FFP2/FFP3 masks, which can make breathing more strenuous for some ill patients, and surgical or homemade face coverings, for which a rise in carbon dioxide was described as unlikely. On whether masks cause lung disease, the review reports that Önder Yildirim, director of the Institute of Lung Biology at Helmholtz Zentrum München, rejected that claim in comments to dpa on May 18, 2020. He said there were no studies showing that a mask causes lung disease, and explained that breathing fatigue in patients with respiratory illness does not itself mean a disease is being promoted. The account therefore supports a distinction between possible discomfort or difficulty for some people with existing conditions and evidence that masks cause lung disease or are generally dangerous.

APA - Austria Presse AgenturHealth & medicine

In Österreich wurde in der Corona-Krise versucht, die „Stopp Corona“-App des Roten Kreuz zu implementieren und es wird eine Zwangsimpfung gegen das Coronavirus angedacht.

Publisher’s rating: Das ist falsch. Nationalratspräsident Wolfgang Sobotka (ÖVP) plädierte Anfang April für eine verpflichtende Nutzung der „Stopp Corona“-App, sprach sich einen Tag später aber doch für eine freiwillige Nutzung aus. Es gibt keine Hinweise darauf, dass in Österreich derzeit (Stand 20. Mai 2020) eine Zwangsimpfung gegen das Coronavirus angedacht ist.