The Tata memorial hospital is situated in Parel, Mumbai, in India. It is a specialist cancer treatment and research center, closely associated with the Advanced Center for Treatment, Research and Education in Cancer.
A post went viral on social media in Sri Lanka claiming that cancer can be cured by hot coconut water, research by Dr. Rajendra at Tata memorial hospital.
Debunked Source
Fact-check
In order to investigate the claim, we searched for keywords “tata memorial hospital cancer coconut” and found a news article from “The Hindu” published in 2019, denying the widely circulated claim associated with Tata memorial center. Fact check confirms that the fake news was first circulated in 2019.
(Screenshot from The Hindu website)
Tata memorial hospital also posted a clarification regarding the claim on Facebook back in 2019.
(Screenshot from Facebook post)
Source
Rating
Disinformation/ False Context / Propaganda
Conclusion
Our fact-check confirmed that the viral video dates back to 27th August 2019. The video was shared in a false context to mislead the general public about the cure of cancer.
ABCDE Framework-Based Analysis
| Actor | Independent social media users from Sri Lanka are involved in spreading disinformation. |
| Behavior | A bogus claim was widely shared on social media and associated with the Tata memorial center of India. |
| Content | Social media posts. |
| Degree | The target audience of this disinformation is the general public of Sri Lanka. The shared claim was not authentic. Tata memorial name was attributed with news to gain attention and validation. |
| Effect | The post was an attempt to mislead the public. The news got attention of social media users in no time and the post was shared mainly across the social media platforms. |