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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

PolitiFactHealth & medicine

“George Washington mandated smallpox vaccines for the Continental Army.”

Publisher’s rating: Mostly True

Research from related reporting supports the claim’s central point: in 1777, George Washington directed the Continental Army to undergo inoculation against smallpox. The reports describe this as an early military vaccination program, not as a modern vaccine policy. One account states that “the military instituted its first vaccination program in 1777 when Gen. George Washington directed the inoculation of the Continental Army to protect personnel from smallpox.” The evidence is specific to the event in the claim: it names Washington and the Continental Army, gives the year, and identifies smallpox as the disease the inoculation was intended to address. The excerpts do not provide the underlying historical order or explain its exact terms, such as how the directive was carried out or whether it applied without exceptions. They therefore support the basic assertion that Washington ordered inoculation, but do not establish every possible interpretation of “mandated” beyond that description.

PolitiFactHealth & medicine

Christine Grady “is the head of NIH.”

Publisher’s rating: False

Research from related reporting identifies Jay Bhattacharya—not Christine Grady—as director of the National Institutes of Health. The same article describes Grady as having been removed from her position as chief bioethicist of the NIH Clinical Center. Those are distinct roles: the evidence supports the claim that Grady held a bioethics post at the Clinical Center, but not that she headed NIH.