RFK Jr’s ‘Maha’ report found to contain citations to nonexistent studies
Robert F Kennedy Jr’s flagship health commission report contains citations to studies that do not exist, according to an investigation by the US publication Notus.
The report exposes glaring scientific failures from a health secretary who earlier this week threatened to ban government scientists from publishing in leading medical journals.
The 73-page “Make America healthy again” report – which was commissioned by the Trump administration to examine the causes of chronic illness, and which Kennedy promoted it as “gold-standard” science backed by more than 500 citations – includes references to seven studies that appear to be entirely invented, and others that the researchers say have been mischaracterized.
Two supposed studies on ADHD medication advertising simply do not exist in the journals where they are claimed to be published. Virginia Commonwealth University confirmed to Notus that researcher Robert L Findling, listed as an author of one paper, never wrote such an article, while another citation leads only to the Kennedy report itself when searched online. […]
The citation failures come as Kennedy, a noted skeptic of vaccines, criticized medical publishing this week, branding top journals the Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine and Jama as “corrupt” and alleging they were controlled by pharmaceutical companies. He outlined plans for creating government-run journals instead.
Somehow I’m not wholly surprised that these citations don’t exist, given that RFK Jr.’s qualifications for his job don’t exist either, but I’m still kind of shocked despite that. The report appears to be full of shit and other problems as it is, but the evident number of outright lies is concerning. I fear this gives us an insight into what those government-run journals might be like…
