In any case, it's a major nuisance, and sucks up ridiculous amounts of time and energy due to people forwarding nonsense emails or worrying about virus hoaxes. Those of us who are on many mailing lists or have many correspondents end up seeing these stupid things umpteen times, and they get more annoying every time they appear in our inboxes. Go to some authority that you absolutely know to be trustworthy and relevant to the subject at hand . If it's a medical alert sort of thing, check it through a medical professional or the web site for the American Medical Association or a similar organization. If it's been forwarded multiple times, it's highly unlikely that it's true.
Forwarded emails have the same level of credibility.
There are certain characteristics shared among almost all email hoaxes . Excessive use of exclamation marks and deliberately alarming language are just a few of them. The fact that something has been stated on a web site instead of in an email does not make it any more likely to be true. I could put up a web site in just a couple of minutes that stated, in very authoritative language, that spammers have caused the hole in the ozone layer. Check the sources.