FactCheck.org’s SciCheck feature focuses exclusively on false and misleading scientific claims that are made by partisans to influence public policy. It was launched in January 2015 with a grant from the Stanton Foundation. The foundation was founded by the late Frank Stanton, president of CBS for 25 years, from 1946 to 1971.
Q. Is it true that federal agents arrested Harvard professor Charles Lieber for creating the coronavirus?
A: No. Lieber, a nanoscientist, was charged for lying about his participation in a Chinese recruitment program and his affiliation with a Chinese university. He is not accused of being a spy and has no connection to the new coronavirus.
President Donald Trump suggested that the new coronavirus would “go away” in April, as temperatures warm. While some viruses are seasonal, it’s not yet clear if the new virus will follow the same pattern — and experts caution against banking on the weather to resolve the outbreak.
Several online stories inaccurately claim that the new coronavirus contains HIV “insertions” and shows signs of being created in a lab. But there is no evidence that the new virus was bioengineered, and every indication it came from an animal.
An outbreak of viral pneumonia that began in the central Chinese city of Wuhan at the end of 2019 has now sickened thousands, and led to more than 100 deaths. Here, we answer some key questions about what is known so far about the outbreak and the virus.
Multiple social media posts are spreading a bogus conspiracy theory about the deadly Wuhan virus. The posts falsely claim that the virus has been patented and a vaccine is already available. That’s not true; the patents the posts refer to pertain to different viruses.
The Trump administration announced a new policy that will soon forbid the sale of some, but not all, flavored vapes. We explain the new policy and review the scientific evidence on whether e-cigarettes are likely to have a positive or negative impact on public health.
President Donald Trump boasted of the lowest cancer death rate on record, and implied that his administration was responsible for the achievement. While he’s right about the statistic, the improved death rate is the result of decades-long efforts on cancer prevention, detection and treatment.
Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden claimed without evidence that “more people are coming home from Iraq with brain cancer” than “any other war,” and blamed burn pits for the purported increase. But existing statistics do not bear that out, and the evidence on the cancer risk of burn pits is inconclusive.
President Donald Trump mocked concerns about global warming, saying that oceans would rise just “[o]ne-eighth of an inch within the next 250 years.” Although he may have been joking, his figure is many times lower than scientific estimates.
In the last Democratic debate, Sen. Bernie Sanders said that the United Nations is projecting “hundreds of millions of climate refugees” in the “years to come” as a result of climate change. The U.N., however, doesn’t currently endorse a particular estimate.