White House blames 'formatting issues' in health report that cited non-existent studies

The wide-ranging "Make America Healthy Again" (MAHA) report spearheaded by U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cited hundreds of studies, but a closer look by the news organization NOTUS found that some of those studies did not actually exist.

Asked about the report's problems on Thursday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the report will be updated. She did not directly respond to a question of whether artificial intelligence had been used to generate the 72-page report, which calls for increased scrutiny of the childhood vaccine schedule and decried America's food supply, pesticides and prescription drugs.

"I understand there was some formatting issues with the MAHA report that are being addressed and the report will be updated." Leavitt told reporters during her briefing. "But it does not negate the substance of the report, which, as you know, is one of the most transformative health reports that has ever been released by the federal government."

Leavitt said that the White House has "complete confidence" in Kennedy.

NOTUS reported Thursday that seven of the more than 500 studies cited in the report did not appear to have ever been published, while its report said some studies were also misinterpreted in the MAHA report.   

Katherine Keyes, an epidemiology professor at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, was cited in the report as the author of "Changes in mental health and substance use among US adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic," which the report said was published in the medical journal JAMA Pediatrics.

Keyes told Reuters that neither she nor the named co-authors of the paper had written it.

According to Virginia Commonwealth University, psychiatry professor Robert L. Findling — who teaches at that school — did not author the article cited in the report as "Direct-to-consumer advertising of psychotropic medications for youth: A growing concern" in the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology. 

The studies attributed to Findling and Keyes no longer appeared in the MAHA report on the White House website as of Thursday evening.

Kennedy has spent decades sowing doubt about the safety of vaccines, raising concerns within the scientific and medical communities over the policies he would pursue as health secretary. Since taking the role, thousands of workers at federal health agencies have been fired and billions cut from U.S. biomedical research spending — though at times in congressional testimony, Kennedy has professed a lack of knowledge of some of the layoffs.

The MAHA report is supposed to be used to develop policy recommendations that will be released later this year. The White House has requested a $500 million US boost in funding from Congress for the initiative.

Georges C. Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, told the Washington Post that, "for all practical purposes, [the report] should be junked at this point."

"It cannot be used for any policymaking. It cannon even be used for any serious discussion, because you can't believe what's in it.

It was the latest development in a busy week for Kennedy and the department. On Tuesday, he announced in a brief video that COVID-19 vaccines are no longer recommended for healthy children and pregnant women — a move immediately questioned by several public health experts.