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.

13,676 published reviews in this topic

Deutsche Presse-AgenturHealth & medicine

Eine auf Facebook verbreitete Schwarz-Weiß-Fotografie soll angeblich demonstrieren, dass eine Impfung das Immunsystem von Kindern zerstört. Das Bild zeigt zwei Jungen - das Gesicht und der Oberkörper des linken sind mit Pocken übersäht, der rechte hat so gut wie keine Pusteln. Der erkrankte Junge soll gegen das Pockenvirus geimpft worden sein, heißt es in dem Foto, der andere Junge habe keine Impfung erhalten.

Publisher’s rating: Das Foto zeigt genau das Gegenteil dieser Behauptung. Beide Jungen kamen in Kontakt mit dem gleichen Pocken-Infizierten. Daraufhin bildeten sich bei dem ungeimpften Jungen die typischen Hautbläschen, beim geimpften Jungen entwickelten sich dagegen kaum Pocken.

Pagella PoliticaHealth & medicine

«Gli ultimi dati dell’Inail dicono che 300 persone al giorno in Italia si contagiano sul posto di lavoro e dieci muoiono. E il lockdown si è allentato da una settimana soltanto»

Publisher’s rating: Pinocchio andante

Francesco Boccia made the statement in a May 9 interview with Corriere della Sera, criticizing the Province of Bolzano’s early reopening of shops. He said Inail data showed 300 people a day catching coronavirus at work and ten dying, and that lockdown had been eased only a week earlier. The review compared those figures with Inail’s report, published May 8, covering workplace infection reports received from late February through May 4, the start of Phase 2. The review calculated daily averages from the reported totals and the periods covered. Inail had received 37,352 infection reports by May 4; using about 70 days from the end of February, the review found an average of 533 reports a day—not 300. It also compared the April 30 report, which counted 28,381 reports through April 21, with the May 4 total. The difference over 14 days amounted to about 640 reports per day. These are reports of infection, not a complete count of workplace infections. On deaths, the review reported 129 fatal-outcome claims received by Inail from late February to May 4, averaging fewer than two a day, rather than ten. It also noted that the figures covered a limited set of insured workers: Inail’s data excluded, among others, family doctors, self-employed doctors, and pharmacists, and were provisional and not comparable with the National Health Institute’s data. The review therefore characterized Boccia’s figures as imprecise while cautioning that Inail’s statistics understated the broader picture. Phase 2 began May 4, five days before Boccia’s interview; the review provides that chronology but does not separately assess his “a week” wording.

FACTLYHealth & medicine

గత కొన్ని రోజులుగా తాను గొంతు వెనకాల వచ్చిన బోన్ కాన్సర్ తో భాధ పడుతున్నానని, తను ఆరోగ్యంగా ఉండాలని పవిత్రమైన రంజాన్ మాసంలో ముస్లింలు ప్రార్ధన చేయాలని కోరుతూ ట్వీట్ చేసిన అమిత్ షా

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

Deutsche Presse-AgenturHealth & medicine

"Der Bundesgerichtshof lässt den Glauben an die Viren untergehen", heißt es in einem mehrere Jahre alten Artikel, der aktuell wieder vermehrt in sozialen Netzwerken verbreitet wird. Angeblich hätten die Richter in einem Beschluss bestätigt, "dass alle Behauptungen zur Ansteckung von Masern, zu Masern-Impfungen und zum Masern-Virus keine wissenschaftliche Grundlage haben".

Publisher’s rating: Es gibt keinen Beschluss des Bundesgerichtshofs (BGH) zur Existenz von Masernviren. Das Gericht wies lediglich eine Beschwerde im Zusammenhang mit einem nicht gezahlten Preisgeld zurück.

The claim attributes to Germany’s Federal Court of Justice (BGH) a ruling that assertions about measles transmission, vaccination and the virus lacked scientific basis. The dpa review traces the court case to a €100,000 prize offered by biologist Stefan Lanka in November 2011 for a scientific publication proving measles-virus existence and determining, among other things, its diameter. Medical student David Bardens submitted six publications; after Lanka did not pay, Bardens sued. The review reports that the Ravensburg Regional Court ordered payment, but the Stuttgart Higher Regional Court later ruled for Lanka because the prize terms required proof in one publication, not several. [S1]

Fact Crescendo Sri LankaHealth & medicine

Fact Check : Death of SL nurse, Vihara Jayasekara in Adelaide was not due to COVID19 | ඕස්ට්‍රේලියාවේ විසු ශ්‍රී ලාංකික හෙදියගේ මරණය සිදුවුයේ කොරෝනා ආසාදනයෙන් නොවේ !

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The review examined social-media posts claiming that Vihara Jayasekara, a Sri Lankan nurse in Adelaide, had died after contracting COVID-19. It describes posts that circulated her name and photographs and identified her as a nurse who had treated patients with the virus. The review says friends and family challenged those posts and that her family confirmed her death while specifying that it was not caused by COVID-19; they described the cause as an unidentified infection. The claim under review was therefore about the cause of this particular nurse’s death, not simply whether she had died. To check the claim, the publisher says it consulted an Australian national living in Sri Lanka and examined South Australian government announcements and the state’s daily coronavirus reporting. It reports that South Australia’s May 9 report listed four COVID-related deaths in total. It also cites a government announcement identifying the fourth death as a 74-year-old Ruby Princess passenger on April 12. These records provided a state-level chronology against which the posts’ claim could be assessed; the review does not present a death certificate or other individual medical record for Jayasekara. The review concludes that Jayasekara’s death was not due to COVID-19, relying on the family’s account and the reported absence of later COVID-related deaths in South Australia. The state death count is supporting context rather than direct medical evidence about her individual case. The excerpts provided do not establish the exact medical cause of death beyond the family’s description of an unidentified infection, so a more specific cause should not be inferred.

NewtralHealth & medicine

Mueren 232 niños por COVID-19 en Italia

Publisher’s rating: Falso

The claim concerns social-media posts alleging that 232 children had died of COVID-19 in Italy. Newtral’s review says the posts circulated in the context of the country’s coronavirus outbreak and quotes one Facebook post asking whether people still thought the disease affected only older people. The review reports that this post had been shared at least 358 times and carried the claim of 232 child deaths. To check the figure, the review compared official Italian health data and the latest available report from the country’s health institute, published on 8 May. It says that, from the first recorded case on 30 January through 9 May, Italy registered 30,201 deaths overall. The institute’s report recorded three deaths among children aged 0–9—one boy and two girls—and none among people aged 10–19. The review also says the institute’s press office confirmed the figures. The review separately cites a 23 April document from the Italian Society of Pediatrics, which put the number of deceased minors at two and said they had serious pre-existing conditions. Thus, the cited sources do not support the social-media figure of 232: the official report and the pediatric society document give much lower counts, with the latter noting prior serious illnesses among the children it counted.