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

ComprovaHealth & medicine

OMS alerta sobre máscaras infectadas que chegam ao Brasil

Publisher’s rating: Falso: O Comprova verificou que não há previsão de distribuição de máscaras para a população por parte dos órgãos de saúde do estado e o próprio autor do vídeo se retratou nas redes sociais de uma afirmação que fez sobre a chegada ao porto de Santos de máscaras contaminadas por covid-19 vindas da China

ComprovaHealth & medicine

Taxa de letalidade da covid-19 em Minas Gerais é mais de 11 vezes menor que em São Paulo, mais de 10 vezes menor que no Ceará e mais de 31 vezes menor que no Rio de Janeiro

Publisher’s rating: Falso: Minas Gerais tem uma taxa de letalidade menor da doença provocada pelo novo coronavírus, mas as diferenças são muito menores do que as apontadas por um texto publicado nas redes sociais. O Comprova verificou ainda que há outros erros no texto que viralizou

NewtralHealth & medicine

Tasuku Honjo, Nobel de Medicina 2018, afirma que el coronavirus ha sido fabricado por el hombre

Publisher’s rating: Falso

The claim concerns a message circulated on WhatsApp that attributed to Japanese professor Tasuku Honjo, the 2018 Nobel Prize laureate in Medicine, a statement that the coronavirus was not natural but had been made by humans. Newtral reports that it found no reports of Honjo making the alleged remarks, and concludes that neither the statement nor the accompanying claim that it caused a sensation in the media is supported. The excerpt also describes a separate check by Alt News, which it identifies as an IFCN member fact-checking team. According to Newtral, Alt News reported that the outlet NewsMeter had published an email from one of Honjo’s students denying that Honjo had made the claim. Together, the absence of reports of the alleged remarks and the reported denial from a student contradict the attribution presented in the WhatsApp message. The excerpt does not provide the email itself or further details about how the teams searched for or authenticated the statement.

台灣事實查核中心Health & medicine

【錯誤】網傳影片宣稱「新妙招，印度捉到沒有戴口罩的市民 ，關到一架救護車裡鎖住 ，裡面有一個假扮確診的患者...」？

Publisher’s rating: 錯誤

The claim described a video as a real Indian police operation: people caught without masks were allegedly locked in an ambulance with someone pretending to have COVID-19. The review identifies the footage as a public-health awareness video made by police in Tamil Nadu, not an actual enforcement incident. It says the clip showed officers stopping motorcyclists without masks and putting them in the ambulance with a person presented as a patient, before the riders panicked and escaped through a window. To trace the footage, the review says it reverse-searched stills from the video and found an April 24, 2020, Telugu-language news item linking the incident to Tamil Nadu. It then searched local Tamil Nadu news and found reporting by The News Minute about the same event. That reporting attributed the video to Tiruppur district police. The review quotes district Superintendent of Police Disha Mittal as saying the video was staged throughout, including both the people violating the rules and the patient in the ambulance, and that the purpose was to raise awareness about the possible consequences of breaking restrictions. The review also reports that BOOM, an Indian fact-checking organization, interviewed Mittal and quoted her confirming that everyone in the footage was acting. As an additional clue from the video itself, the review says its opening frame displays the Tamil Nadu police logo and states that the film was made in the public interest to increase awareness. Together, the attribution to the police, the officer’s account, and the video’s own identification support the conclusion that the clip was staged rather than a recording of police actually detaining members of the public in this way.

台灣事實查核中心Health & medicine

【錯誤】網傳影片宣稱「特朗普黑幫全都接種了新冠疫苗！2020年4月20日，特朗普的新冠新聞發布會露出驚天秘密...難怪...特朗普新冠檢測始終陰性」？

Publisher’s rating: 錯誤

The claim concerns a video that presents an exchange at a White House briefing as evidence that Donald Trump and his team had already been vaccinated, and that the U.S. government had orchestrated the pandemic. The review says the video combined footage from a press conference with narration and subtitles making those allegations. It concludes that the exchange was a joke between media workers and that the video’s further claims lacked support. To trace the footage, the review reports finding a one-minute clip posted by the Twitter account Golden State Times on April 21, identified in the review as April 20 in the United States. It says the fact-checkers compared that clip with the circulating video and matched them using the logo in the lower-left corner and the content. The review identifies the speakers as Fox News White House correspondent John Roberts and New York Times photographer Doug Mills. The review reports that Roberts described his remarks as sardonic humor and Mills said the exchange was a total joke. It also says Roberts stated that they took the virus seriously, did not believe the conspiracy theories, and that there was no COVID-19 vaccine at the time, so nobody could have been vaccinated. The review further reports that Roberts reiterated on April 22 that the exchange was sarcastic and that COVID-19 was not misinformation. On this evidence, the conversation does not establish the video’s vaccination or government-plot allegations.

Deutsche Presse-AgenturHealth & medicine

In Schweden gehe die Corona-Epidemie "dem Ende entgegen" und das ganz ohne Lockdown, wird in einem Facebook-Post behauptet. Das lasse sich aus den neuesten Daten ablesen. Als Beweis wird eine Grafik mit der Überschrift "Deaths per Day" angeführt, die zum Ende hin stark abfällt. Das schwedische Beispiel zeige, dass ein Lockdown medizinisch unnötig oder sogar kontraproduktiv sei.

Publisher’s rating: Dass die Epidemie in Schweden dem Ende entgegengeht, lässt sich nicht aus den Zahlen schließen. Die Gesundheitsbehörde warnt vor Fehlinterpretationen, vor allem bei jüngeren Daten. Im Vergleich zu Nachbarländern ist die Zahl der Todesfälle pro 100 000 Einwohner in Schweden vergleichsweise hoch.

The Facebook post used a Swedish public-health-agency chart titled “Deaths per Day” to argue that the epidemic was nearing its end despite Sweden not imposing strict lockdown measures. The review checked the apparent drop at the end of the chart against the agency’s explanation of its data: reports of new cases and deaths were delayed and later updated, so figures for the most recent days needed to be interpreted cautiously. That caveat directly explains the chart’s steep decline. The post showed 30 deaths for 17 April, 19 for 18 April and 17 for 19 April. But the review reports that, as of 30 April, the agency’s statistics listed 80, 85 and 86 deaths for those same dates. The low figures were therefore incomplete early totals, not reliable evidence that deaths were rapidly falling or that the epidemic was ending. The review also adds comparative context to the argument about Sweden’s approach. It says Sweden had not adopted strict measures such as closing schools, kindergartens, shops and restaurants, while describing some restrictions and public-health recommendations. Using Johns Hopkins University figures dated 28 April, it reports 23.1 deaths per 100,000 people in Sweden, compared with 7.5 in Denmark, 3.9 in Norway, 3.6 in Finland and 7.6 in Germany. Those figures do not establish that lockdowns caused the differences, but they contradict the post’s use of Sweden as evidence that the epidemic was ending or that strict measures were medically unnecessary.

Deutsche Presse-AgenturHealth & medicine

Um die Auswirkungen der Corona-Pandemie einzuschätzen, wird diese häufig mit der besonders schweren Influenza-Saison 2017/18 verglichen. In einem Facebook-Post etwa sind Zahlen gegenübergestellt, darunter "Tote innerhalb von 3 Monaten": Während der "Grippewelle 2017/18" seien dies 25 100 gewesen, während der "Coronawelle" 3000

Publisher’s rating: Die 25 100 Todesfälle sind eine Schätzung des Robert Koch-Instituts (RKI) für die Grippewelle 2017/18. Die laborbestätigten Todesfälle lagen mit 1674 deutlich darunter. Im Zusammenhang mit dem Coronavirus zählte das RKI bereits Mitte April 2020 mehr als 3000 laborbestätigte Todesfälle.

BR24 FaktenfuchsHealth & medicine

Bill Gates wird zitiert: "Die Welt werde erst zur Normalität zurückkehren, sobald man der gesamten Menschheit einen Impfstoff verabreicht habe." Viele Menschen vermuten hinter Gates Einsatz für einen Impfstoff eine "Depopulations-Agenda". Die Nebenwirkungen des Corona-Impfstoffes werden auf lange Sicht schlimmer sein als die eigentliche Pandemie.

Publisher’s rating: Falsch. Die zitierte Aussage von Bill Gates ist irreführend übersetzt. Sie lautet im Original "It is fair to say things won’t go back to truly normal until we have a vaccine that we’ve gotten out to basically the entire world" und stammt aus einem Interview von April 2020. Eine korrektere Übersetzung wäre: "Man kann durchaus sagen, dass die Dinge erst dann wieder wirklich normal werden, wenn wir einen Impfstoff haben, den wir nahezu der ganzen Welt zur Verfügung gestellt haben." Die starke Übersetzung "verabreichen" geben der Satz selbst im Original und der Kontext nicht her. Im Interview ging es zuvor darum, ob es bei nur einer Infektionswelle bleiben würde, wenn alle Maßnahmen des Shutdowns und des Testens eingehalten würden. Gates antwortete, dass man noch nicht wisse, wie saisonal das Coronavirus sei. Dass die Bill & Melinda Gates Stiftung Geld für die Entwicklung eines Impfstoffs gibt, stimmt. Aber die Behauptung, dass Impfstoffe, die derzeit zum Schutz vor dem Virus Sars-Cov-2 gesucht werden, schlimmere Wirkungen haben könnten als das Virus selbst, entbehrt jeder Grundlage. Impfstoffe werden, bevor sie eingeführt werden, geprüft, in vorgeschriebenen Entwicklungs- und Prüfverfahren.