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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

NewtralHealth & medicine

El vídeo antiguo usado para ilustrar falsamente cómo ponen en cuarentena a personas de 50 años en Hungría

Publisher’s rating: Falso

The video was shared with a Spanish-language caption claiming that it showed Hungarian police taking people aged 50 or older from the streets and putting them in quarantine. Newtral reports that the footage was not filmed in Hungary and was unrelated to the coronavirus pandemic: it was recorded in Baku, Azerbaijan, in October 2019. Its account identifies a different event behind the footage—police detentions during protests in Baku—rather than a quarantine operation.

Radio-Canada - DécrypteursHealth & medicine

Le chercheur de Harvard Charles Lieber aurait fabriqué et vendu le coronavirus à la Chine

Publisher’s rating: Faux

The claim circulated with a photograph of Charles Lieber and alleged that he had made and sold coronavirus to China. The review says Lieber was arrested on January 28, 2020, but for a different matter: failing to disclose to U.S. authorities that he was receiving money from China. At the time, he was accused of making a “false, fictitious and fraudulent” statement. The article does not describe an arrest for creating or selling a virus. The review explains that Lieber received Chinese funding through the Thousand Talents program while also receiving U.S. government funding for his Harvard research. It reports that he was paid $50,000 a month, received $158,000 for living expenses, and was allocated $1.5 million to establish a research center in Wuhan. The article identifies his Wuhan connection as a source of the conspiracy theory, but says his work was in nanotechnology, not virology. The review also examined a Boston ABC report that social-media users had retitled to call Lieber the “designer” of COVID-19. According to the article, the broadcast did not discuss coronavirus: it covered allegations that Lieber concealed his financial ties to China and the issue of economic espionage. These details distinguish the documented financial-disclosure allegations and the repurposed news footage from the claim that Lieber created and sold the virus.

NewtralHealth & medicine

El Gobierno ha publicado ya las fechas de finalización de las medidas de confinamiento por el Covid-19

Publisher’s rating: Falso

The review addresses material presented as dates for ending Spain’s Covid-19 confinement measures. It describes a circulating timeline that purported to show when shops and public services would reopen, as well as a message calling its calendar tentative and supposedly handled by the Government. Newtral reports that the Government told it the timeline was not an executive-government scenario map. The review also examined a separate version: a purported royal decree dated Monday, 13 April 2020, styled to resemble documents published in Spain’s Official State Gazette and bearing Cadena SER’s logo. Newtral says this document was fabricated and reports that Cadena SER itself had explained on its website that it was false. Thus, the material cited in the review does not establish that the Government had published confinement-ending dates; the purported schedules and decree were presented as false.

FactRakersHealth & medicine

Beat the coronavirus by eating alkaline food exceeding its pH level

Publisher’s rating: False

The review examines a chain message circulating in private chat groups. It attributed its advice to a “GP Nurse in the UK” and recommended eating foods said to be more alkaline than the coronavirus, including lemon, avocado and dandelion. The review challenges both the premise that the virus has a pH level and the proposed food values. [S1: “The 694-word message being shared in private chat groups dispenses tips on what to do if infected with the virus. They supposedly come from a ‘GP Nurse in the UK,’ a reference to a general practice nurse in the United Kingdom.”] [S1: “On how to overcome SARS-CoV-2 that causes the disease COVID-19, the message recommends:All we need to do, to beat corona virus, we need to take more of an alkaline foods that are above the above pH level of the Virus.”] The review says pH measures acidity or alkalinity in a solution, and reports that medical experts told fact-checkers Africa Check and the Associated Press that SARS-CoV-2 has no pH of its own. It also cites an infectious-diseases and vaccinology professor explaining that pH applies to water-based solutions, which a virus is not. [S1: “The coronavirus does not have a pH level of its own, medical experts have told fact checkers Africa Check and Associated Press.”] [S1: “pH is something that applies to a water based solution, which a virus is not.”] The review further explains that alkaline foods do not make the body’s blood pH change substantially: it cites WebMD on the body keeping that level constant and Healthline on the body tightly regulating blood pH. It notes that diet may affect urine pH, but describes urine pH as a poor indicator of overall body pH and health. The message’s figures also include values above the stated maximum pH of 14, and the review says its listed food pH values are incorrect. [S1: “Nothing you eat is going to substantially change the pH of your blood. Your body works to keep that level constant.”] [S1: “The list of food items provided in the chain message includes two that exceed the maximum pH level of 14: avocado with a claimed value of 15.6 and dandelion a high 22.7.”]

FACTLYHealth & medicine

Eating alkaline foods of pH level above 8.5 can kill the SARS-CoV-2 virus

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

FACTLY assessed a social-media message claiming that eating alkaline foods with a pH above 8.5 could kill SARS-CoV-2, and that this was supported by a 1991 paper in the Journal of Virology. The review checked what the cited paper actually studied: it says the paper concerns Mouse Hepatitis Virus type 4 (MHV4), not SARS-CoV-2. It also notes that SARS-CoV-2 was first reported only in 2019, so the older paper could not have studied that virus. The review separately checked details in the message’s food-pH list. It points out that the pH scale runs from 0 to 14, while some listed values exceed 14, and says lemon’s pH is around 2 rather than 9.9. Those discrepancies undermine the message’s supporting examples; they do not, by themselves, establish what foods do to a virus. For the central claim, FACTLY says there is no scientific evidence that eating alkaline foods can kill SARS-CoV-2. It also reports that neither the WHO nor India’s government had recommended an alkaline-based diet to kill coronavirus. The review quotes virology professor Oyewale Tomori questioning how foods such as lemon, lime, avocado, and garlic would affect a virus that, he said, has nothing to do with the stomach. On the evidence described in the review, the cited 1991 study does not support the claim about SARS-CoV-2, and the food-pH details are also inaccurate.