Viral image
Viral image
stated on September 13, 2021 in a Facebook post:

Photos show the health ministers of Canada and Los Angeles.

False

Altered photos of Canadian and Los Angeles health officials spread online

If your time is short

  • These photos were altered.
 
See the sources for this fact-check

An array of photos being shared on social media brings together five health officials from different countries — but two of the images have been doctored so that the women in them don’t necessarily look like the picture of health.

This post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)

“Canada health minister,” reads the description above a doctored photo of Dr. Theresa Tam, the chief public health officer of Canada. Tam isn’t the health minister — that title belongs to Patty Hajdu. And a reverse image search of the photo led us to what looks like the original. In the altered version, her eyes are bigger and blacker, her skin tone is changed, and her teeth are exaggerated. 

The second doctored image is of Dr. Barbara Ferrer, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. A reverse image search of the photo shows that here, too, her skin tone was changed — giving her a ghostly appearance — and dark circles appear around her eyes in a way that doesn’t reflect what she actually looked like when the picture was taken. 

We rate claims that these photos are authentic and unaltered False.

 
Our Sources

Facebook post, Sept. 13, 2021

Government of Canada, The honourable Patty Hajdu, minister of health, visited Sept. 20, 2021

Yandex reverse image search of Theresa Tam, Sept. 20, 2021

County of Los Angeles Public Health, A message from director Dr. Barbara Ferrer, visited Sept. 20, 2021

Yandex reverse image search of Barbara Ferrer, Sept. 20, 2021