Fact Check: Barbara O'Neill Is NOT Certified By The American Board Of Urology

Fact Check

  • by: Marlo Lee

STORY UPDATED: check for updates below.

Fact Check: Barbara O'Neill Is NOT Certified By The American Board Of Urology Not Certified

Is Barbara O'Neill a medical doctor certified by the American Board of Urology, or ABU? No, that's not true: The American Board of Medical Specialties, which maintains records on medical certifications, told Lead Stories that O'Neill is not certified by the ABU. The American Urological Association also did not find her as a member of their association. Lead Stories independently searched ABU records for "Barbara O'Neill" and a second misspelling of her name, "O'Neil," as was included in a post on Facebook. No relevant results were returned. O'Neill is a controversial naturopath who was banned from practice in Australia.

The claim appeared in a Facebook post (archived here) published on December 13, 2024. The caption read:

πŸ’—πŸ’—π·π‘Ÿ. π΅π‘Žπ‘Ÿπ‘π‘Žπ‘Ÿπ‘Ž 𝑂'𝑁𝑒𝑖𝑙𝑙, π‘π‘’π‘Ÿπ‘‘π‘–π‘“π‘–π‘’π‘‘ 𝑏𝑦 π‘‘β„Žπ‘’ π΄π‘šπ‘’π‘Ÿπ‘–π‘π‘Žπ‘› π΅π‘œπ‘Žπ‘Ÿπ‘‘ π‘œπ‘“ π‘ˆπ‘Ÿπ‘œπ‘™π‘œπ‘”π‘¦, π‘π‘Ÿπ‘œπ‘£π‘–π‘‘π‘’π‘  𝑒𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑐𝑑𝑖𝑣𝑒 π‘ π‘œπ‘™π‘’π‘‘π‘–π‘œπ‘›π‘  π‘“π‘œπ‘Ÿ π‘’π‘Ÿπ‘–π‘›π‘Žπ‘Ÿπ‘¦ π‘’π‘Ÿπ‘”π‘’π‘›π‘π‘¦ π‘Žπ‘›π‘‘ π‘π‘Ÿπ‘œπ‘ π‘‘π‘Žπ‘‘π‘’ β„Žπ‘’π‘Žπ‘™π‘‘β„Ž.
π»π‘’π‘Ÿ π‘Žπ‘π‘π‘Ÿπ‘œπ‘Žπ‘β„Ž β„Žπ‘’π‘™π‘π‘ .
βœ…π‘†π‘’π‘π‘π‘œπ‘Ÿπ‘‘ π‘Ž β„Žπ‘’π‘Žπ‘™π‘‘β„Žπ‘¦ π‘π‘Ÿπ‘œπ‘ π‘‘π‘Žπ‘‘π‘’
βœ…πΌπ‘šπ‘π‘Ÿπ‘œπ‘£π‘’ π‘’π‘Ÿπ‘–π‘›π‘Žπ‘Ÿπ‘¦ π‘π‘œπ‘šπ‘“π‘œπ‘Ÿπ‘‘

This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:

Screenshot 2024-12-16 at 11.54.59β€―AM.png

(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Mon Dec 16 16:57:43 2024 UTC)

The American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) is a nonprofit group that maintains professional medical certificates. In an email to Lead Stories received on December 16, 2024, Susan Morris, ABMS associate vice president of communications, told Lead Stories that there is no record "of a Dr. Barbara O'Neill being board certified by the American Board of Urology (ABU)."

Morris also confirmed there was no record of a "Barbara O'Neil."

Lead Stories searched the ABU physician verification page, a database that includes practicing urologists who are members of the American Urological Association. No results were returned for "Barbara O'Neill" or "Barbara O'Neil," as is shown below:

Screenshot 2024-12-16 at 12.47.34β€―PM.png

(Source: abu.com screenshot taken on Mon Dec 16 16:48:56 2024 UTC)

Screenshot 2024-12-16 at 6.19.53β€―PM.png

(Source: abu.com screenshot taken on Mon Dec 16 22:51:08 2024 UTC)

The ABU website database verifies board-certified urologists; if O'Neill were certified, her name would be present.

Lead Stories contacted ABU and its affiliate, the American Urological Association, for additional information involving O'Neill's purported accreditation. In a December 17, 2024, email, Corey Del Bianco, the communications director for the American Urological Association, said:

I have checked our database and it does not look like we have her as a member of our organization.

Audio is likely AI-generated

Lead Stories ran the audio from the video on Facebook through the University of Buffalo's Deep-Fake-O-Meter, an AI detection tool. The results showed us that there was a very high likelihood that the audio was AI-generated, as shown below:

Screenshot 2024-12-16 at 1.49.18β€―PM.png

(Source: Zinc.cse.buffalo.edu screenshot taken on Mon Dec 16 17:53:18 2024 UTC)

A September 2019 statement from the Health Care Complaints Commissions in Australia called O'Neill "an unregistered practitioner" who "makes dubious and dangerous health claims regarding infant nutrition, causes and treatment of cancer, antibiotics and vaccinations that are not evidence based or supported by mainstream medicine."

Read more

Other Lead Stories fact checks of claims about Barbara O'Neill are here.

Updates:

  • 2024-12-17T15:09:18Z 2024-12-17T15:09:18Z
    Added response from American Urological Association

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Marlo Lee is a fact checker at Lead Stories. She is a graduate of Howard University with a B.S. in Biology. Her interest in fact checking started in college, when she realized how important it became in American politics. She lives in Maryland.

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