By Dr. Hanna ShanarEmergency medicine physician
Viral health claims, checked against the evidence by a practising physician. One claim, one verdict, every source shown.
Latest
The claim: "Vaccines cause autism."
One retracted paper on 12 children launched a global scare. Since then, studies covering more than two million children in seven countries have found no link between any vaccine and autism.
Read the evidence · 12 min"Parents push for an autism diagnosis because a labelled child gets free childcare paid for by insurance or Medicaid, and that's a big reason diagnoses have soared."
Medicaid paid $1.9 billion for autism therapy in 2021 and $10.1 billion in 2025. Some centers run full weekdays for toddlers. Here's what the money shows, and what it doesn't.
"Doctors are rich."
The median doctor earns $276,000 a year. So why do so many hit their first million later than people who never went to medical school? Here's the data, and the five paths that match or beat medicine.
"You don't need blood pressure medication. Just change your lifestyle."
Half of American adults have high blood pressure, and many are told to fix it with diet and exercise first. Here's what each route does to how long you live, what it costs, and what 'change your lifestyle' really asks of people.
"The rise in autism diagnoses proves there's an epidemic. Something new is causing it."
In 2000, 1 in 150 American 8-year-olds had an autism diagnosis. By 2022 it was 1 in 31. Here's what changed: the children, or the way we count them.
Send it over. The most-asked claims get a full write-up.