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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

Fact CrescendoHealth & medicine

Claim: Tamil Siddhas mentioned herbal medicine for Covid 19

Publisher’s rating: False

Fact Crescendo investigated a social-media post claiming that Covid-19 was not a new disease and that an old Tamil remedy already existed for it. The post showed a page from an old medical book and identified the remedy as “Korona tablet.” The review describes the post as claiming that the medicine was an ancient Tamil treatment. Its investigation focused on whether the book page actually named a remedy for Covid-19.

台灣事實查核中心Health & medicine

冠狀病毒的pH值在5.5到8.5之間變化...需要攝入更多高於上述pH值的鹼性食品...在您發現這些現象（症狀）時，請迅速將熱開水和檸檬一起喝。每天吃橙

Publisher’s rating: 錯誤

The review examines a circulating message that says coronavirus has a pH range of 5.5 to 8.5, recommends eating foods with higher pH values, and advises drinking hot water with lemon and eating oranges when symptoms appear. It identifies the message as a claim supposedly originating with recovered hospital patients, and notes that a shorter version also circulated. The review assesses both the pH-based food advice and the proposed symptom treatment. For the pH claim, the review quotes National Taiwan University veterinary professor Chen Hui-wen explaining that viruses do not have a pH value of their own; their pH varies with the surrounding environment. Chen distinguishes disinfection from what happens inside the body: strong acidic or alkaline conditions can damage viruses in an external environment, but people cannot make their bodies strongly acidic or alkaline to destroy them. Chang Gung University emerging virus infection research center director Shih Hsin-ju likewise says alkaline foods are unrelated to a virus’s pH. The review concludes that using alkaline foods to control the virus has no scientific basis. On the remedy, Shih says hot water with lemon and eating oranges cannot treat coronavirus. The review adds that although lemon contains vitamin C, it does not have a treatment effect; it also reports Chen’s view that vitamin C does not treat viruses, including cold viruses. The review’s conclusion is therefore that the pH-based food advice and the suggested lemon-and-orange response do not work as claimed.

台灣事實查核中心Health & medicine

我們醫生感染新冠狀病毒迅速康復，是因持續每天吸入熱水蒸氣，讓肺部、喉嚨和口腔溫度上升，讓病毒失去活力

Publisher’s rating: 錯誤

The review examined a message circulating on social media and messaging apps that attributed doctors’ rapid recovery from COVID-19 to repeatedly inhaling hot-water steam. The message claimed that steam raised the temperature of the lungs, throat and mouth enough to make virus there inactive, and recommended inhalation morning and evening. It also advised gargling warm salt water. The review’s conclusion addressed both practices, rather than treating the anecdote about doctors as proof that either one worked. To assess the steam claim, the Taiwan FactCheck Center interviewed Min-Ji Lu, a microbiology department chair and infectious-disease professor at China Medical University, and Li-Min Huang, president of the Taiwan Society of Infectious Diseases and director of pediatrics at National Taiwan University Hospital. Lu said steam was not hot enough to kill the virus in the body, and warned that breathing out after inhalation could expose people nearby; he also said inhalation could move virus from the upper to the lower respiratory tract and expand infection. Huang said steam inhalation had no therapeutic effect and that excessive heat could injure the surface cells of the nose or throat. For the salt-water advice, the review referred to its earlier report number 282, which had found that salt-water gargling could not prevent or treat COVID-19. The evidence presented therefore does not support the message’s proposed explanations or preventive and treatment advice. The experts instead warned of possible infection-related risks or injury from steam inhalation.

Vishvas NewsHealth & medicine

గ్రిమ్ హేడ్స్ అనే ఒక యూజర్ ట్విట్టర్ పై షేర్ చేసిన ఒక పోస్ట్ న్యూస్ ఫార్మాట్ లో ఉన్న ఒక స్క్రీన్ గ్రాబ్. ఇందులో ఈ విధమైన టెక్స్ట్ ఉంది: టాయిలెట్ పేపర్ లో కనిపించిన కోవిడ్-19, ఈ ప్రాణాంతక జాతి టిష్యూ ఫైబర్స్ లో చాలా వేగంగా వృద్ధి చెందుతుంది.

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

Deutsche Presse-AgenturHealth & medicine

Wer in Großbritannien älter als 65 Jahre sei und eine Grippe-Impfung bekommen habe, werde von der britischen Regierung in die "Gruppe der Höchstgefährdeten" für die Lungenkrankheit Covid-19 eingereiht: Diese Behauptung verbreitet sich derzeit in den sozialen Medien. Die Geimpften stünden damit auf derselben Stufe wie "frisch Transplantierte" und "schwer Krebskranke", heißt es etwa

Publisher’s rating: Das ist falsch. Die britische Regierung hat nicht behauptet, dass eine Grippeimpfung das Risiko für eine Covid-19-Erkrankung erhöhe.

BR24 FaktenfuchsHealth & medicine

In Folge 10 der ersten Staffel von "My Secret Terrius" von 2018 auf Netflix wird der Coronavirus-Ausbruch vorausgesagt. Das Virus ist absichtlich verändert worden, um tödlicher zu sein. Das Virus ist vor dem Ausbruch bekannt gewesen. Man hat die Bevölkerung ihm absichtlich ausgeliefert.

Publisher’s rating: Falsch. Die Serie ist Fiktion und greift auf die Tatsache zurück, dass die Familie der Coronaviren schon länger bekannt ist. Die aktuelle Mutation aber nicht.

Deutsche Presse-AgenturHealth & medicine

Plusieurs utilisateurs Facebook partageaient un message supposément envoyé par une infirmière du CHU Saint-Pierre de Bruxelles. Le message, relayé sur plusieurs réseaux sociaux, annonçait que le service des urgences de l’hôpital avait reçu une trentaine de patients atteints de Covid-19 mais que la direction de l’hôpital avait fait signer une clause de confidentialité à ses employés.

Publisher’s rating: L’hôpital CHU Saint-Pierre de Bruxelles n’a pas demandé à ses employés de signer une clause de confidentialité dans le but de cacher le nombre de personnes infectées par Sars-CoV-2 présentes dans ses locaux.

The claim concerned a message circulated on social media that was purportedly from a nurse at Brussels’ CHU Saint-Pierre. It said the hospital’s emergency department had received about 30 patients with Covid-19 and that hospital management had made employees sign a confidentiality clause. The review addresses that specific allegation, rather than a general claim about hospital reporting or confidentiality. The review reports that on March 4, CHU Saint-Pierre published a denial and announced legal measures against people spreading false news about Covid-19 and the situation at the hospital. The hospital described the information as defamatory and said it had obtained an order from the president of the Brussels Court of First Instance requiring people who had shared or hosted the content to remove it. The hospital also filed a complaint for defamation. The review also compares the message’s claimed tally with a public-health announcement from the same day: Belgium’s public-health service reported 23 people infected across the country. That figure is not a count of patients at the hospital, so it does not independently establish how many people were treated at CHU Saint-Pierre. The review’s account of the hospital’s denial and legal response directly addresses the alleged confidentiality clause; the excerpt does not describe interviews, document checks, or other independent verification methods.