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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

Washington PostHealth & medicine

"For years, Dr. Ralph Baric, a virologist in the U.S., has been collaborating with Dr. Shi Zhengli of the Wuhan Virology Institute, sharing his discoveries about how to create super viruses. This gain-of-function research has been funded by the NIH."

Publisher’s rating: Two Pinocchios

Research from related reporting describes Baric and Shi as collaborators on coronavirus research, including work that combined two coronaviruses. It also documents U.S. funding in the surrounding research network, but the excerpts distinguish that funding from the specific collaboration and do not show that NIH funded every project mentioned. One account says that in November 2015 Baric and Shi published work combining two coronaviruses into a new virus that attacked lung cells, and that they continued working together afterward. It says Peter Daszak, whose EcoHealth Alliance group received NIH funding, frequently collaborated with them. This supports the existence of collaboration and NIH funding connected to the network; it does not, by itself, establish the claim’s broader wording about sharing discoveries or NIH directly funding Baric and Shi’s joint work. Another report describes a 2018 EcoHealth Alliance proposal involving Baric and Shi that sought to modify bat coronaviruses. It explicitly says the proposal was not funded, and separately discusses NIH reviews and funding restrictions concerning other coronavirus research. Thus, the available excerpts support that the scientists pursued research relevant to how coronaviruses might infect humans, while showing why the funding claim needs qualification: the cited DARPA proposal was rejected, and the excerpts do not identify NIH as its funder.