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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

Enjuagarse la garganta con agua salada previene la neumonía de Wuhan

Publisher’s rating: Falso

The review examined a WhatsApp message, also shared on Facebook, claiming that Zhong Nanshan had recommended gargling with salt water to prevent infection by the new coronavirus. The message offered an explanation: it said the virus or bacteria lingered in the throat and that diluted salt water could kill them, thereby preventing infection. The review reports that the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, where Zhong’s medical team works, said the attributed statement was false. To check the claim, the review says it searched Baidu using Chinese search terms for “salt water coronavirus” and found links reporting the hospital’s denial. The excerpt does not describe a clinical trial or direct testing of gargling; its stated evidence addresses whether Zhong made the recommendation, rather than independently measuring the effect of gargling. The claim that the recommendation came from him is therefore contradicted by the hospital’s reported response.

NewtralHealth & medicine

Se ha detectado un caso de Coronavirus en Huelva

Publisher’s rating: Falso

The claim concerned a purported RTVE image saying that a coronavirus case had been detected in the Hispanidad neighborhood of Huelva. Newtral reports that Paloma Jara, director of RTVE Andalucía, denied that the broadcaster’s news services had published the information. The review also says the Andalusian Health Department told Newtral that there was no coronavirus case in the region. These checks directly contradict the alleged local case and the image’s attribution to RTVE. For national context, the review reports that government spokesperson María Jesús Montero said the only case in Spain at that point was a German patient on La Gomera. The source’s stated conclusion is supported by the denials it describes; the excerpt does not provide independent medical records or further details about the purported image’s creation.

NewtralHealth & medicine

Dietas virales y los alimentos que curan el cáncer

Publisher’s rating: Falso

Newtral’s review addresses claims that diets or particular foods can cure cancer. It says claims that an alkaline diet or an “alkaline environment” can reduce cancer risk are false, and warns that such diets cannot replace conventional treatment, including radiotherapy, chemotherapy or surgery. The excerpt does not describe a new clinical test; it discusses circulating claims and explains why the studies those claims cite do not establish that a diet or alkaline environment can kill cancer.

FACTLYHealth & medicine

Video of a family died due to novel Coronavirus.

Publisher’s rating: FALSE

The claim concerned a social-media video said to show a family whose members had died from the novel coronavirus. FACTLY reports that it searched for the video’s earlier appearances and found the same video online in December 2019. It also says a user tweeted it on January 1, 2020, with a different claim. The review does not establish what the video actually depicts or its exact context. The key chronological evidence is that the video was already circulating before the first death from the novel coronavirus was reported. FACTLY places that first reported death in the second week of January 2020. That timing contradicts the post’s claim that the people in the video had died from the outbreak: the footage predates the reported death. The review’s conclusion is specifically that the video was old and unrelated to the outbreak, not that it identified the people shown or explained the video’s original circumstances. FACTLY says the exact context could not be ascertained, so the evidence supports rejecting the post’s attribution while leaving the footage’s underlying story unresolved.

AAP FactCheckHealth & medicine

An Instagram post from January 31, 2020 features a claim that WHO has called the coronavirus “a plague and it has infected an estimated 340,000 people in China and killed 75,000.

Publisher’s rating: False - The primary claims of the content are factually inaccurate. Based on the evidence, AAP FactCheck found the Instagram post to be false. While the WHO has declared the 2019 coronavirus outbreak as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, it has not deemed the outbreak as a “plague”. Also the number of infections and deaths globally are far below the numbers claimed in the post. Although the Instagram user labelled the claim in their first upload with “cap”, potentially indicating the post was false, many users appear unaware the post contains false information.