This photo shows a cancer survivor who received a scalp transplant – it was used in a satirical article about a brain transplant
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on August 5, 2019 at 06:20
- 2 min read
- By Adeng MAYIK
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The image and claim were published on Facebook here by a Pakistan-based page with more than 9,500 followers.
Below is a screenshot of the misleading post on Facebook:
The text in the post states in part: “Man who had woman’s brain transplanted had five car crashes in two weeks.
It also says: “53-year-old man named Phil Robertson from Scranton in Pennsylvania was miraculously saved from a brain cancer a few months ago by undergoing a successful brain transplant.
“He received the brain of a 37-year old woman who had died in a car accident and the operation had unforeseen consequences for the poor man.”
Posts making a similar claim were also shared here and here on Facebook and here on Twitter.
The claim is false; the photo previously appeared in news reports about a 55-year-old cancer survivor named Jim Boysen, who was the first man to receive a partial skull and scalp transplant in May 22, 2015, at Houston Methodist Hospital.
Below is a screenshot of this Indonesian-language BBC report from the time which contains the image, translated to English:
Some of the false posts also included a photo of a man referred to as Dr. James Ford.
But a reverse image found the same photo published here on November 8, 2011 on a Flickr page that describes itself as the official "Army Medicine" account of the US military.
Below is a screenshot of the photo as it appears on Flickr:
The caption states in part: "Army Col. (Dr.) George E. Peoples explains how cancer vaccines help to combat breast cancer during an interview at San Antonio Military Medical Center."
The story about a man who had five car crashes after a brain transplant was previously published on the satirical site World News Daily Report here on November 29, 2018.
Below is a screenshot of the satire story, headlined "Man who had woman’s brain transplanted has five car crashes in two weeks":
The tagline of the World News Daily Report website is "Where facts don't matter" and it carries a disclaimer here stating that all its stories are satirical and fictional in nature.
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