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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

Maldita.esHealth & medicine

El Ministerio de Sanidad dice que jamás existió tal Comité Científico

Publisher’s rating: Falso

The claim arose from a social-media message suggesting that the government had first invoked a Scientific Committee during the pandemic and that the Ministry of Health later said it had never existed. The review says the dispute conflated two different bodies: the Scientific Technical Committee mentioned in Sánchez’s 21 March tweet, and the technical team involved in deciding which areas could advance through the easing of restrictions. It reports that the ministry denied the existence of the latter as a “committee of experts,” not the Scientific Committee. The review says the Scientific Technical Committee was constituted on 21 March, the day Sánchez tweeted about it. It reports that Sánchez and Health Minister Salvador Illa met weekly with the committee, and that its membership—initially six people, later seven—was publicly named. The committee was led by Fernando Simón, director of the Centre for the Coordination of Health Alerts and Emergencies. These details address the specific committee named in the claim, rather than the separate team responsible for phase assessments. The review describes that second team as public-sector technical staff who assessed epidemiological information from autonomous communities and advised on progression toward the “new normality.” It says the ministry described its personnel as professionals from the Directorate-General for Public Health and the CCAES, but did not provide a definitive list of names and roles. Thus, the review’s account is that the ministry’s denial concerned the label and existence of a separate “committee of experts,” not the Scientific Committee referred to in Sánchez’s tweet.