133
votes
Accepted
Did COVID-19 take the lives of 3,100 Americans in a single day, making it the third deadliest day in American history?
The numbers on the chart seem to be close for the most part, although there are other events that match the criteria of this image that should be included.
We are going to assume, for the sake of ...
- 22.3k
131
votes
Accepted
Did toddlers with guns claim more American lives than terrorism in 2015?
It depends on your definition of terrorism and your interpretation of the quote: is it about American lives anywhere in the world, or about death in America including non-Americans. For the purpose of ...
tim♦
- 51.4k
130
votes
Accepted
Is the infant mortality rate among African-American babies in Youngstown, Ohio greater than that of babies in Iran?
Highly likely. The infant mortality rate in Iran is 13 (per 1000 births); the infant mortality rate for African Americans in Ohio (but not specialized to Youngstown) is 15.6.
There may be difference ...
- 2,073
124
votes
Accepted
Was an elderly woman forcibly euthanized in the Netherlands?
A physician in the Netherlands was recently reprimanded by an "Inspectorate" for the "Disciplinary Offices for Healthcare" (Tuchtcolleges voor de gezondheidszorg) over this case.
...
- 140k
101
votes
Accepted
A century ago, was giving birth a major cause of death?
Has maternal mortality due to child birth dropped in England over the past 100 years?
Yes. Tremendously.
The 2006 paper, British maternal mortality in the 19th and early 20th centuries examines this.
...
- 140k
95
votes
Accepted
Are female surgeons less likely to kill you?
The statement appears to accurately mirror the research paper.
To me it looks about as well done as such a study could be done with the data available. Though beware of popsci news articles which ...
- 9,486
95
votes
Are cadavers normally embalmed with "butt plugs" before burial?
Yes, that device is used for that purpose, but the claim is somewhat misleading, including about its frequency of use.
The device is called an "A/V Closure". A/V stands for Anus/Vagina. Here ...
- 140k
88
votes
Accepted
As of August 2020, was the weekly mortality rate in the US the lowest in a decade and the second lowest in the 21st century so far?
It appears that the study by Colleen Huber, NMD, a Naturopathic Medical Doctor, cited in the OP is incomplete, and was subsequently withdrawn on 13 August, 2020.
The NYT article, 13 August 2020, ...
- 1,041
85
votes
Accepted
Do nails and hair continue to grow after death?
No, this is false.
The University of Arkansas Medical Services debunks this myth:
Hair and fingernails may appear longer after death, but not because
they are still growing. Instead, a persons ...
- 18.7k
79
votes
Was an elderly woman forcibly euthanized in the Netherlands?
Oddthinking's answer is quite complete, but it does not quite address the allegation by the Daily Wire that
She was given coffee with a sedative in it, but she refused to drink it — and then ...
- 766
74
votes
Accepted
Do about 100 Germans die every year due to risky masturbation?
Even though the article was published by Bild (which is a strong indicator that you have to check the sources yourself) and has no verifiable source, it sounds correct.
In 2009, Sandra Kuhn wrote a ...
- 1,961
62
votes
Accepted
Are there more boys born in the US?
This happens everywhere, not only in the USA, though the degree of disparity varies from country to country.
Gender Ratio - Our World in Data provides a lot of information on this topic.
The two most ...
- 3,936
55
votes
Is austerity in the UK responsible for "120,000" extra deaths?
That new report (Effects of health and social care spending constraints on mortality in England: a time trend analysis) is absolutely in line of prior research. The mortality rises across the board ...
- 44k
53
votes
As of August 2020, was the weekly mortality rate in the US the lowest in a decade and the second lowest in the 21st century so far?
No.
Sanity check:
The CDC has provisional weekly death data for 2019 and 2020 available here: https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Weekly-Counts-of-Deaths-by-State-and-Select-Causes/muzy-jte6.
The average number ...
- 611
46
votes
Accepted
Are you more likely to be struck by lightning than to win the lottery?
Summary
As an "Average" person, you are vastly more likely to be hit by lightning over the course of a year (somewhere in the range 1 in 280,000 through 1 in 960,000) than you are to win the ...
- 9,004
44
votes
Was an elderly woman forcibly euthanized in the Netherlands?
Something that isn't discussed in both answers here is that in her demented state, she did express herself.
From the decision, point 2.13, most recent 3 quotes, translated:
Dutch:
“2 april 2016 (…...
- 557
42
votes
Accepted
Has there been a 1101% increase in excess deaths among children aged 0-14 across Europe in 2022?
"Caveat percentor"
You can DL the dataset from EuroMOMO and do the simple arithmetic yourself. (Sorry no direct link to the dataset seems possible; they use some AJAX or stuff like that.) It'...
- 57.1k
42
votes
Accepted
Do sandcastles kill more people than sharks?
Partial Answer: It's likely very close
Wikipedia provides a list of fatal shark attacks in the US (reproduced below), but there is no such publicly available list for sand collapses so it's hard to ...
- 30.2k
41
votes
Does mortality fall when doctors go on strike?
If you are sick, keep the doctors away?
(Variously attributed to Democritus and Leonardo da Vinci, no reliable source found)
Doctors' strikes and mortality: a review (doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2008.09....
- 44k
38
votes
Accepted
Are white and non-white police officers equally likely to kill black suspects?
TL;DR - we don't know if the study is corroborated.
I will continue to look into this topic to edit and improve the answer. It may be too early to conclude if the results of the 2018 paper are ...
- 14.1k
38
votes
Are deaths of patients with, but not because of, COVID-19 recorded as COVID-19 deaths in the USA?
The larger context of Birx's quote is::
There are other countries that if you had a preexisting condition and let's say the virus caused you to go to the ICU and then have a heart or kidney problem ...
tim♦
- 51.4k
35
votes
Accepted
Was 2016 the Deadliest year for the LGBTQ community?
The data this claim seems to be based on is severely limited. I applaud their efforts to bring attention to this issue, but they do not appear to be using scientific counting methods, and their data ...
- 12k
32
votes
Accepted
Do people fall over when shot because they've seen it on films?
Per Anthony J. Pinizzotto, Harry A kern and Edward F. Davis in FBI law enforcement bulletin October 2004, with the exceptions of hits to the brain or upper spinal cord, the concept of reliable and ...
- 22.7k
32
votes
Was 2016 the Deadliest year for the LGBTQ community?
In addition to BobTheAverage's asnwer, the claim has other notable problems (hat/tip to commenters on the question for some of them):
The claim tries to imply (not just the cracked.com image, but HRC'...
- 31.1k
31
votes
Do about 100 Germans die every year due to risky masturbation?
tl;dr
Possibly. We cannot be sure. There are no official statistics about that.
The origin of this claim is German tabloid Bild:
80 bis 100 Tote jährlich durch Selbstbefriedigung
80 bis 100 ...
- 44k
28
votes
Has there been a 1101% increase in excess deaths among children aged 0-14 across Europe in 2022?
These are the graphs for mortality from EuroMOMO which are the source for the claim as far as I can determine:
There is also this article fact checking the claims of the blogger: Viral claims are ...
- 43.7k
25
votes
Is Ruth Bader Ginsburg alive as of February 2019?
In this article by the well-respected Associated Press, we read of a concert that Justice Ginsburg attended Monday night (Feb 4, 2019), her first public appearance since surgery in New York on ...
- 2,883
25
votes
Accepted
Did Sweden experience lower all-cause mortality during the pandemic?
Sweden was not particularly good or bad on covid compared to Scandinavian peers, but it did better than some major developed countries
If we compare the cumulative covid death toll from trustworthy ...
- 56.2k
24
votes
Accepted
Is Covid-19 the biggest ever killer of Americans (mutatis mutandis)?
No, but it's close, ranking between #4 and #6 depending on how you count.
As of August 20, 2020, the US death toll from COVID-19 is roughly 175,000 (source: the New York Times, the CDC, and ...
- 2,755
23
votes
Is Covid-19 the biggest ever killer of Americans (mutatis mutandis)?
According to the CDC
The 1918 flu pandemic virus kills an estimated 195,000 Americans during October alone.
According to the data collected by Johns Hopkins, Covid-19 has killed 173,626 people in ...
- 3,816
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible