275
votes
Accepted
Are these claims about Japan’s health system true?
The gist of it is true
Health Care System in Japan
"100% of Japanese people have their healthcare regardless of income"
This is partially true. All are mandated to have coverage, but that ...
- 11k
226
votes
Accepted
Do facemasks cause CO2 poisoning?
This is the meter used in the video:
Note that the sensor is situated at the top, pointing upward. When the person in the video breathes out, the exhaled air will be directed into the sensor, but ...
- 5,511
117
votes
Accepted
Does the US spend more public money (i.e. tax/capita) on Health Care than other developed countries?
Based on data published by the OECD, the claim that the United States spend more public money on health resources than other developed countries is true. The figures given there for the 35 OECD member ...
- 8,465
103
votes
Accepted
Was a four year-old forced to sleep on the floor of Leeds General Infirmary?
The hospital says it happened:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leeds-50713236
The hospital apologised and said it had had its busiest week since 2016.
Dr Yvette Oade, chief medical officer at ...
- 1,205
86
votes
Accepted
Does Lincoln County, Oregon require only white people to wear masks?
Lincoln county has published this statement:
In this Directive there were several exceptions identified recognizing that not everyone could or should wear a face covering: ...
People of color who ...
- 2,084
85
votes
Accepted
Did Henry Kissinger say this about forced vaccinations?
No, there is no evidence this is an actual quote
Reuters has investigated this issue and came to conclusion:
Henry Kissinger’s speeches are archived on his website and only two are listed for 2009 ( ...
- 4,291
77
votes
Do ibuprofen or paracetamol cause hearing loss?
Yes.
That is: They can cause hearing loss. They are properly classified as ototoxic agents.
Paracetamol/Acetaminophen is certainly not entirely harmless. In fact it is properly classified as an ...
- 43.4k
70
votes
Accepted
Did the Trump administration propose new cuts to the health budget in February 2020?
The Trump budget in February proposed a 10% cut to Health and Human Services and specifically a 16% cut to the CDC (which is part of the HHS). From the Washington Post:
The 2021 budget request ...
- 676
66
votes
Does Lincoln County, Oregon require only white people to wear masks?
No, there is currently no such requirement or exception to that requirement. For one week the health guidelines related to masks in Lincoln County, OR included an exception for people of color who ...
- 11.4k
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 ...
- 43.4k
53
votes
Were 25% of newly-infected HIV-positive gay men actively seeking infection in 2003?
The number originates from a Rolling Stone article titled Bug Chasers by Gregory Freeman:
Cabaj estimates that at least twenty-five percent of all newly infected gay men fall into that category.
...
tim♦
- 50.6k
50
votes
Accepted
Do mosquitoes urinate on you when they bite you?
Yes.
(Photo by James Gathany, Public Health Image Library (PHIL), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
But it could be worse.
Most blood-sucking insects urinate while they feed so they can ...
- 2,402
48
votes
Does the US spend more public money (i.e. tax/capita) on Health Care than other developed countries?
The level of state funded healthcare spending in the USA is similar to the levels of spend in comparable countries despite not covering the majority of the population
Britain's Office of National ...
- 54.7k
41
votes
Accepted
Did the WHO have evidence of significant human-to-human transmission of SARS-CoV-2 prior to January 14, 2020?
The answer to this is going to opinion based to some extent. The WHO like everyone else was largely dependent on China for information at that point. Here's for example what the ECDC reported/...
- 49.6k
36
votes
Were many vaccine-preventable diseases almost gone before vaccines were introduced?
Cases of measles in the US, 1960-2001, CDC, via Science Based Medicine
"Measles Elimination in Canada", from Journal of Infectious Diseases (2004)
As you can see from the curve the number ...
- 2,384
34
votes
Accepted
Were many vaccine-preventable diseases almost gone before vaccines were introduced?
Summary:
The main point of these claims is that the death rate for some diseases was declining before vaccines. While that is true, it misses the fact that even though the death rate was declining, ...
- 22.8k
30
votes
Accepted
Are electronic cigarettes a healthier alternative to regular cigarettes?
Electronic cigarettes may not be harmless but they are clearly much less harmful than cigarettes
Public Health England (PHE) produced a review of e-cigs in the middle of 2015 which came to this ...
- 54.7k
29
votes
Accepted
Were international travellers kept waiting in densely packed queues at US airports due to COVID-19 screenings?
tl;dr: I have found plenty of references to unusually long lines, and a complete absence of "social distancing" in these lines. O'Hare Intl. Airport's Twitter account and The Washington Post ...
- 1,407
27
votes
Accepted
Does the US rank worse than other developed countries in infant mortality mostly because of differences in the definition of "infant mortality"?
There is an article from the CDC on this titled "Behind International Rankings of Infant Mortality: How the United States Compares with Europe". They show the different reporting requirements, and the ...
- 42k
26
votes
Did Henry Kissinger say this about forced vaccinations?
This image is not of a newspaper. It is, rather bizarrely: a photo of a black-and-white printout, of a low-quality photo, of a glossy printout, of a screenshot, of a Facebook "meme" image ...
- 5,942
21
votes
Do ibuprofen or paracetamol cause hearing loss?
The referenced study is likely "Analgesic Use and the Risk of Hearing Loss in Women" in the American Journal of Epidemiology. The conclusion states
In conclusion, this prospective study ...
- 42k
20
votes
Accepted
Was a male birth control trial cancelled due to symptoms that were no worse than female birth control?
The study of male birth control is publicly available and lists the reasons for the cancellation:
[The decision to cancel] was based on RP2’s review of study AEs [adverse events] and conclusion that ...
tim♦
- 50.6k
20
votes
Accepted
Do hand dryers in public bathrooms spread bacteria?
Cleaning your hands
The UK NHS has a write up of a 2012 review of the evidence in Mayo Clinic Proceedings. They note that the papers reviewed reported different results, probably due to factors such ...
- 316
20
votes
Accepted
Is the USA “not even in the top 10 when one compares international death rates resulting from mass shootings”?
This NPR article puts it in perspective. Indeed, the US is not among the top gun-death countries in the world. However, when you look at the countries with higher death rates, you do not find any of ...
- 5,861
19
votes
Accepted
Is there a dramatic decrease in the number of diagnoses of noninfectious diseases?
That's true.
It is of course difficult to pinpoint any number for all diseases and all countries, but is not just an anecdotal observation from your local oncology section:
In France, "the delay ...
- 43.4k
18
votes
Accepted
Can honey help heal wounds?
In short, yes. Picking one of the first recent publications to come up in my search for "honey wound healing", I give you Honey and Wound Healing: An Update (DOI 10.1007/s40257-016-0247-8), which "...
- 851
18
votes
Do ice cubes with holes in them come from a purified water source?
Anyone with $345 can make ice with holes in it with this Portable Commercial Ice Maker Under Counter Built-in Ice Maker Machine with Freezer (and this isn't even the cheapest one out there by a long ...
- 22.8k
17
votes
Drinking 3 glasses of milk per day doubles a woman's chances of death?
Does drinking more than 3 glasses of milk a day double your risk of death?
The study was not designed to answer this question
The claim in your question title and in the headline of the Cleveland ...
- 3,152
17
votes
Is the rate of food poisoning in the USA much worse than the rate in the UK?
Statistics in the UK are presented separately for England and Wales, and other regions. Salmonella infections in particular are covered here. The latest published statistics are from 2016 and say that ...
- 279
16
votes
Is food becoming less nutritious because of depletion of soil minerals and nutrients?
Avery gave you a list of "yeses" by moving the goal posts to an issue of organics vs non-organic modern agriculture. Here's a peer-review no to the actual question of historical decline: ...
- 49.6k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible