Get the facts on health
Fact checks about medical conditions, the NHS, social care and government funding of national health services
Get the facts on… Monkeypox How healthy are we? Is the NHS being privatised?
Health misinformation can ruin lives and damage health services. Our health team fact checks claims about health including funding and delivery, and dangerous medical claims, and makes recommendations to improve the quality of public information about health. We are grateful to the Health Foundation and the European Media and Information Fund for their support of this work.
As an independent charity, none of our funders have a say in what we choose to check, or our conclusions. More information about our funding.
Latest health fact checks
Margarine isn’t ‘one molecule away’ from plastic
Margarine doesn’t share 27 ingredients with paint and isn’t one molecule away from plastic.
Viral list of ‘patents on viruses’ fact checked
An image shared on social media with claims it shows a list of patent numbers for viruses such as H1N1 flu, Zika virus and SARS is not quite what it …
Viruses are real and you can ‘catch’ them
Despite claims to the contrary, viruses are real and have been sequenced many times.