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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.

13,677 published reviews in this topic

NewtralHealth & medicine

El hospital de Stanford distribuye un mensaje con recomendaciones sobre el coronavirus

Publisher’s rating: Falso

Newtral examined a message attributed to Stanford Hospital that circulated online and claimed to offer ways to tell whether someone was infected with COVID-19. The review says the hospital denied distributing it and described its contents as inaccurate. The hospital’s reported statement said the widely circulated email “No vino de Stanford” (it did not come from Stanford).

NewtralHealth & medicine

La tabla que compara los síntomas del coronavirus, la gripe y el resfriado

Publisher’s rating: Engañoso

Newtral’s review examines a table comparing symptoms attributed to COVID-19, flu and the common cold. The article says Newtral asked Mario Bárcena, a doctor in the Spanish Society of General and Family Physicians’ infectious-disease and respiratory-pathology working groups, to assess its contents. Bárcena concluded that respiratory infections cannot be reliably distinguished from one another by symptoms alone: he said there are no symptoms that reliably separate COVID-19 from other viral respiratory infections. The review identifies specific problems with the table’s comparisons. Bárcena said yellow-green phlegm was not a distinguishing COVID-19 symptom and that dry cough was more frequent among infected patients. He also objected to listing a lung X-ray finding as a symptom for comparison: what the table called a lung “spot” referred to pulmonary infiltrates, which are a diagnostic-test finding, not a symptom. For flu and colds, he questioned the distinction between throat “pain” and “discomfort,” and said the table’s term for severe aches was not used in Spanish in Spain. The review also notes that the table’s presentation leaves out relevant qualifications. Bárcena said fatigue or weakness is common in seasonal flu, but diarrhea and vomiting are not generally so, except that they may be more frequent in children. The article reports that official guidance cited there included digestive symptoms such as diarrhea and abdominal pain among symptoms some people with COVID-19 could experience, though those were absent from the comparison table. The review therefore describes the table as unreliable for distinguishing these illnesses, rather than claiming that every symptom listed is false.

NewtralHealth & medicine

Vídeo que dice que el actual coronavirus ha sido fabricado en Wuhan

Publisher’s rating: Falso

The video discussed in the review features a television contributor claiming that the new coronavirus was manufactured in a Wuhan laboratory, supposedly with French and Canadian participation. The review traces that assertion to a March 10 appearance on Madrid regional channel Distrito TV. It says the contributor invoked Global Research, but describes that site as a self-described outlet for “the untold truth,” not as a laboratory research group or an organization endorsed by the scientific community. The programme’s presenter also characterized the allegations as unconfirmed rumours. [S1: “El pasado 10 de marzo, un colaborador afirmaba en la cadena de televisión regional de Madrid Distrito TV” / “Ni es un grupo de investigación de un laboratorio ni está avalada por la comunidad científica.”] The review reports that scientists from multiple countries, in a statement published by The Lancet on February 19, condemned conspiracy theories alleging that COVID-19 did not have a natural origin. It says the statement pointed to international collaboration on sequencing and analyzing the virus’s genome, which supported the conclusion that the coronavirus originated in wildlife. The article also cites James Leduc, director of the University of Texas’s national laboratory in Galveston, who called a laboratory escape “highly improbable” and said the available information was consistent with a virus emerging from nature and infecting humans. [S1: “La revista The Lancet publicó un comunicado el pasado 19 de febrero en el que científicos de múltiples países condenaban” / “concluir «abrumadoramente» que el actual coronavirus se originó en la vida silvestre” / “Toda la información que tenemos hasta ahora es consistente con un virus que sale de la naturaleza e infecta a humanos”] The review also addresses the video’s reference to a Johns Hopkins pandemic exercise held in New York on October 18. It reports that the university said the exercise was intended to highlight preparedness and response challenges, not to predict the course or death toll of the actual outbreak. The review quotes the university’s clarification that the exercise used a fictional new coronavirus and that its modeling data were not similar to those for the 2019 novel coronavirus. [S1: “el 18 de octubre, el Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security realizó en Nueva York una prueba, un simulacro de pandemia de coronavirus” / “No hicimos una predicción sobre que el brote de nCoV-2019 matará a 65 millones de personas.”]

YouturnHealth & medicine

அனைவரும் இதை சேர் பண்ணுங்க நண்பர்களே ஏனென்றால் படத்தில் இருக்கும் பூச்சி கடித்தால் தண்ணீர் தாகம் எடுக்கும். தண்ணீர் குடித்தவுடன் உயிர்போகும் வாய்ப்புள்ளது. இது வெயில் காலங்களில் வீட்டில் அதிகம் காணப்படும். எனவே குழந்தைகளின் நன்மைக்காக இதை சேர் பண்ணுங்க pls.

Publisher’s rating: Fake

NewtralHealth & medicine

La Comunidad de Madrid está seleccionando ciertos centros para que atiendan otras urgencias y no mezclar enfermos por el coronavirus

Publisher’s rating: Falso

The review investigates a WhatsApp message that named Hospital Montepríncipe and claimed Madrid’s regional government was selecting certain centers for other emergencies, keeping them separate from coronavirus patients. The publisher says it checked the claim with the regional health ministry, which told it the message was not accurate: “Desde Newtral.es, hemos consultado con la consejería de Sanidad de la Comunidad, que nos indican que el contenido es falso.” The hospital group HM Hospitales, which manages Montepríncipe, also publicly rejected the specific claim that the hospital would be designated free of COVID-19. The review quotes its statement: “@HMHOSPITALES quiere desmentir las informaciones aparecidas sobre que la CAM va a designar a HM Montepríncipe como un hospital libre de COVID19.” The review also cites reporting published by Redacción Médica on March 13, 2020. According to the review’s account, company sources told that outlet that all hospitals in the group were treating coronavirus patients, while the group was preparing a contingency plan to provide beds for the public health system. That account contradicts the message’s portrayal of Montepríncipe as a clean hospital reserved for other urgent cases.

NewtralHealth & medicine

Tweet de El Mundo que dice que el diputado de Unidas Podemos, Pablo Echenique, se encuentra ingresado de urgencia en la UCI» tras dar positivo en coronavirus

Publisher’s rating: Falso

The claim concerns a purported El Mundo tweet saying that Unidas Podemos deputy Pablo Echenique had tested positive for coronavirus and was urgently admitted to an intensive care unit. The review identifies the message as coming from a fake account, rather than from the newspaper, and reports that Echenique himself denied the claim. The review quotes his denial on Twitter: he said that, “de momento no” (not at that point), he had coronavirus, and joked that he was “ingresado en Norauto” (admitted to Norauto). The review presents that remark as a response to people joking that he had coronavirus and was hospitalized; it does not describe an actual hospital admission. The excerpt does not provide the tweet’s account handle, an image or archived copy of the purported post, or details of how the account was authenticated as fake. Its stated evidence is the account being false and Echenique’s denial. The review also notes that this was not the first false message claiming he had tested positive, but gives no further details about those earlier messages.

NewtralHealth & medicine

Audio que habla de desabastecimiento y falta de camas en la Fundación Jiménez Díaz

Publisher’s rating: Falso

The audio attributed to a supposed doctor at Madrid’s Fundación Jiménez Díaz claimed that the intensive care unit was full of coronavirus patients, that there were not enough ventilators, and that someone needing intensive care would be unable to enter. It also described two young patients, including a 29-year-old man and a 36-year-old woman, as having no other conditions and being at risk of dying. The hospital disputed those claims. Newtral reported that it had obtained an internal circular from the head of intensive care, César Pérez Calvo, which “refuta tajantemente” the audio’s statements about the unit. The circular said that, since Monday, March 9, the hospital had recorded ten coronavirus-positive cases. It also clarified that the two young patients mentioned in the audio needed intensive-care treatment for conditions not associated with coronavirus. The account gave specific details about capacity and equipment that contradicted the alleged shortage: intensive-care beds had increased from 18 to 23, with 12 more potentially available under a contingency plan. Each bed was in an individual cubicle with the necessary equipment, including a ventilator. The hospital said it had requested and received ten additional ventilators in anticipation of increased demand. Its communications department separately told Newtral there was no shortage at the hospital and that its protocols followed those of the regional and national health authorities.