An image shared on Facebook claims to show two photos of the conjoined twins that Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Ben Carson separated in 1987.

Verdict: False

Neither photo shows the conjoined twins Carson separated in 1987. The female twins in the upper photo have not been separated, and the male twins in the lower photo do not appear to have ever been conjoined.

Fact Check:

A former neurosurgeon, Carson has served as HUD secretary since March 2017, after running against President Donald Trump in the 2016 Republican presidential primaries. He received international attention in 1987, when he led the surgical separation of German conjoined twins named Patrick and Benjamin Binder, according to the Washington Post.

The post features two photographs – one of two babies joined at the head and one of two young men who appear to be twins – and claims, “These are the Conjoined twins that Dr Ben Carson Separated in 1987.”

However, neither photo shows the Binder twins. (RELATED: Did Ben Carson Call Homelessness ‘A Gift From Heaven’?)

Through a reverse image search, the Daily Caller discovered that the upper photo shows Canadian conjoined twins Krista and Tatiana Hogan. The Globe and Mail published the photo, taken by a staff photographer, in a 2009 article. The Hogan twins were born in 2006 and cannot be surgically separated due to the nature of their conjoining, according to cbc.ca.

The lower photo shows twins Carson and Cramer Gormley posing for a picture with their car, per its caption. The 2008 article Michigan Live published about them put their ages at 18, meaning they were born in either 1989 or 1990. The Daily Caller didn’t find any media reports of them being conjoined at birth.

One iteration of the claim has been shared more than 211,000 times, despite not showing the twins Carson separated in 1987.