MAHA Report Found To Contain Citations To Nonexistent Studies
- Reference: 0177869633
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/05/30/1643248/maha-report-found-to-contain-citations-to-nonexistent-studies
- Source link:
> Some of the citations that underpin the science in the White House's sweeping "MAHA Report" [1]appear to have been generated using artificial intelligence
[2]non-paywalled source
, resulting in numerous garbled scientific references and invented studies, AI experts said Thursday. Of the 522 footnotes to scientific research in an initial version of the report sent to The Washington Post, at least 37 appear multiple times, according to a review of the report by The Post.>
> Other citations include the wrong author, and several studies cited by the extensive health report do not exist at all, a fact [3]first reported by the online news outlet NOTUS on Thursday morning. Some references include "oaicite" attached to URLs -- a definitive sign that the research was collected using artificial intelligence. The presence of "oaicite" is a marker indicating use of OpenAI, a U.S. artificial intelligence company. A common hallmark of AI chatbots, such as ChatGPT, is unusually repetitive content that does not sound human or is inaccurate -- as well as the tendency to "hallucinate" studies or answers that appear to make sense but are not real.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/05/29/maha-rfk-jr-ai-garble/
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/29/rfk-jr-maha-health-report-studies
[3] https://www.notus.org/health-science/make-america-healthy-again-report-citation-errors
This guy (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't want to seem like I'm being evasive, but I don't think people should be taking medical advice from me
-- RFK Jr.
[1]https://www.cbsnews.com/news/r... [cbsnews.com]
[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rfk-jr-medical-advice-vaccine-question-hearing/
Re: This guy (Score:3)
Itâ(TM)s the actual purpose of most appointees in the administration: erode confidence in the government so they can more readily defund it.
The problem is that the people who think this is a good idea are also the primary beneficiaries, and donâ(TM)t seem to realize it.
Re: (Score:2)
> I don't want to seem like I'm being evasive, but I don't think people should be taking medical advice from me
> -- RFK Jr.
> [1]https://www.cbsnews.com/news/r... [cbsnews.com]
I don't know if he's uninformed, willfully misinformed or just lies / makes things up (like his boss, but I digress). He recently said that 70% of Americans are obese when it's only 40%, and 50% of people in China have diabetes when it's only 12% - among other wrong things about autism, vaccines, and measles. Does he not understand numbers?
[2]FACT FOCUS: Examining RFK Jr.'s claims about measles, autism and diet as head of HHS [apnews.com]
[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rfk-jr-medical-advice-vaccine-question-hearing/
[2] https://apnews.com/article/rfk-vaccines-autism-measles-obesity-food-dye-f26089856550e978d28fd25b653d8103
Re: (Score:2)
Admitted 14 year heroin addict.
Great person to make decisions on America's health.
Re: Give that most things in DC are written by ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Here is where you fall off the cliff
[1]Children are given vaccinations not only to protect them, but to also protect those vulnerable people who they come into contact with [mayoclinic.org]
[2]I n addition, while there are risks to any vaccine, they are far outweighed by the risks that COVID19 expose to pregnant women and their fetus [mayoclinic.org]
[3]The problem with going against FDA recommendations, is that insurance companies will not pay for treatments not specified by the FDA, these are referred to as off-label use and come out of your pocket [fda.gov]
Aside from being really bad choices for individual health, they are applying mis-information to fracture people's belief is things that serve us in providing a safe and healthy society.
[1] https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/in-depth/herd-immunity-and-coronavirus/art-20486808
[2] https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/in-depth/pregnancy-and-covid-19/art-20482639
[3] https://www.fda.gov/patients/learn-about-expanded-access-and-other-treatment-options/understanding-unapproved-use-approved-drugs-label
Re: (Score:2)
> Despite the AI hallucinations, most of the sources were correct
Well shit, I guess since it's MOSTLY correct it's fine, right? I'm with you, that's exactly how I like my public policy dictated: By people who use AI to generate mostly right information, and don't have the knowledge required to assess if it's made up bullshit or not. But hey, since it agrees with your preconceived ideals it's all good, right? Fuckin bang-up job there. (I guess since we're on the topic of bad reseearch: Anecdotes are not science, and correlation isn't causation.)
Re: (Score:2)
> your vote, your administration, your wish.
I voted neither for Trump nor the interns. Not the interns in Congress. Not the interns in the White House. Not the interns in the Department of [insert name here]. Etc.
Re:Give that most things in DC are written by ... (Score:5, Insightful)
> Give that most things in Washington DC are written by the interns, recent college grads, it shouldn't be surprising AI was used recently.
No, you don't understand. Karoline Leavitt announced in a press conference that the errors in the report were caused by "formatting errors". That will undoubtedly sound reasonably to the people who routinely swallow the crap she's always spewing.
It's not about sounding reasonable (Score:3)
The news media is completely owned by billionaires now so when it comes to getting information we are more or less on our own.
It's so bad we had to create an entire new vocabulary for it. Alternative facts and sane washing.
There are real journalists out there but they have a hard time keeping their jobs because the billionaires buy up any Media company they work for that starts to get traction.
I remember watching the website The Hill turn into right wing shills and being very confused because they
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The sad part is, you've probably convinced yourself that you're speaking some sort of truth.
But no, until Trump documents produced by government agencies in Washington were not based on absolute lies.
Spin has always existed, but completely fabricated data is a new, very Trumpian thing.
Re: (Score:1)
My first reaction, was to point you to Herman Goering, but you were talking about completely fabricated data.
Herman used the truth as a starting point of his lies.
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Also, I don't think he spent much time in DC.
Re: (Score:2)
> but completely fabricated data is a new, very Trumpian thing.
New? You don't remember him announcing that a group of immigrants was eating people's cats?
Re: (Score:3)
I mean, yeah, it shouldn't be surprising. I, like these people, use AI pretty much daily for some task or the other. That doesn't excuse me from consequences if I send a report to the higher ups with a bunch of fake AI bullshit in it. I'd fully expect to be fired, or at least reprimanded in some way. But nah, this one gets brushed off as [1]formatting issues [usatoday.com] as if federal policy being hallucinated and released to the public is a completely normal.
[1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/05/29/rfk-jr-maha-report-citation-errors/83925319007/
You Expected Anything Else? (Score:4, Insightful)
This regime is committed to trying to bend reality to match their expectations. They will continue to do so by whatever means are available to them..
The question now is what can be done about this blatant attack on not only the rule of law but on reality itself.
Anti-vax report (Score:3)
Was cribbed from chatgpt. Is anyone surprised? Anyone?
(Crickets)
This happens to come from the top of our government, but that’s a different story. A sad, pathetic story, but a different topic.
AI working as intended (Score:2)
This is the kind of thing that the US government would pay reporters to make up, using circular and non-existent citations. Late they revise or redact figures and reports to maintain a shred of credibility. The problem, is that someone's reputation was on the line, but now they can just defer blame to an AI hallucination. The damage is done, you've formed an opinion and a general sense of unease, but you forget what facts and sources you based that opinion or feeling on.
Re: (Score:1)
Your Russian-to-English translation system is crap, Mr. BytePusher.
Complete transparency! (Score:4, Interesting)
Since RFK jr. promised "complete transparency", I'm sure he wouldn't mind sharing which prompts were used to generate the text. I know this because they definitely weren't asking for a specific outcome or any other type of predefined conclusion oriented report. /s
RFK jr. is clearly a fraud in every sense. This farce of a report is exactly the type of malfeasance that should land officials in jail.
Re: (Score:2)
We should expect nepo babies to be more qualified, they are getting every single advantage in life to put them ahead of the pack. They likely grew up wealthy, went to the best schools, met the powerful people, made the right connections so they should be supremely qualified versus the competition. The man is a fucking Kennedy, the closest thing this country had to a royal family.
What do we get though? A guy who fried his brain on heroin, transported dead animals around in his car and who did nothing but fl
Re: (Score:2)
IMO, RFK jr thinks he is part of a "ruling class" that will continue to get great health care regardless of how poor the care given to (or even expected by) the "proles", who are actively being shoved down the class structure from middle class, to lower class, to slaves
Re: (Score:2)
> He is a nepo baby. What did you expect?
The people who voted for this bullshit to be vocal in their disapproval.
Brain worms + opioids = (Score:1)
Matches the non-existent brain cells in RJK Jr's skull.
Re: (Score:2)
Hey, MAGAt. You're an ignorant idiot, not a nerd, so why are you even posting here?
Don't worry - your job posting propaganda will be completely taken over by AI chatbots.
Re: (Score:2)
Sir, some penguins here would like to have a word with you.
We are also probably not going to get (Score:4, Informative)
An updated covid shot this year.
The current shot though is better than nothing. You can and should lie about your immunocompromised status if you are not in the age group they are allowing it. They are not allowed to ask why you are immunocompromised and even if somebody does the list is enormous and includes things like depression.
Basically just use the same tactics used to get your weed card back in 2005.
lots and lots of people are going to die. And if we have another pandemic it's going to be terrifying.
Every single institution designed to protect you has failed or been disassembled. Good luck out there people.
For people wondering why they do this (Score:4, Interesting)
And the anti-floride nonsense too it's because the Republican party is objectively terrible for the economy. The big beautiful bill they are working on passing is going to crash the economy. It gives 7 trillion dollars to the 1% on the national credit card while still cutting $800 billion a year in Medicare and Medicaid spending.
You can tell yourself all you want that those cuts are fine because fuck those people but when 800 billion exits the US economy you are going to be impacted by that.
So because the Republican party is objectively terrible for the economy and jobs they have to give their voters some reason to vote for them besides their pocketbooks.
So we get transpanic, anti-vax and anti fluoride nonsense
These little moral panics are the trade-off you make. You get to indulge in them and feel like you're in control and you have secret information. In exchange for that the entire economy is going to collapse, and you will eventually mortgage your house and lose it to a large corporation.
Doesn't seem like a good trade-off to me but what the hell do I know?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Even very liberal people question the use of fluoride these days. In my country, we are pretty liberal and almost all people here hate republicans. The biggest country's city where I live has banned fluoride in drinking water a long time ago since we get enough simply by brushing our teeth so there is no need to ingest some every time we drink a glass of city water which is pretty good by the way. I simply put some city water in an open container in the fridge and let the chlorine evaporate (fluoride don't
Re: For people wondering why they do this (Score:2, Insightful)
Not all people who oppose fluoride in water are Republicans, but all people who oppose fluoride in water are stupid.
Sure but you will vote authoritarian (Score:1)
The Republican party is the authoritarian party. You will vote Republican if you're on the anti-floride train because you are already so far down the rabbit hole you will cheerfully trade your property and your rights for unscientific nonsense..
I figured as soon as I mentioned fluoride you guys would come crawling out of the woodwork. You are exactly proving my point. Good job.
I mean it doesn't matter you won. I mean you didn't they're going to take your house in a few years. They will use our medic
Re: (Score:2)
This isn't about being "anti-fluoride" at all. I drink about 2-3 liters of city water a day which is excellent where I live. I sure wouldn't drink that much city water if it contained fluoride just to be on the safe side. I brush my teeth 3 times a day and I use toothpaste with fluoride in it so that's enough fluoride. Why would I ingest that much fluoride when I drink water eat soup, chicken broth I make myself, etc. ?
Re: (Score:2)
"just to be on the safe side" and "i take care of my teeth" does not address anything about flouride in drinking water or whatever cost/benefit analysis we take toward the matter.
You have to present something real. I'll start
[1]This cost-effectiveness analysis using data for 8484 children (mean age, 9.6 years) from the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey for 2013 to 2016 found that elimination of fluoride would be associated with an increase in tooth decay of 7.5 percentage points and cost appr [jamanetwork.com]
[1] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama-health-forum/fullarticle/2834515?utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_term=053025
Re: Sure but you will vote authoritarian (Score:2)
I think you either misread my post or meant to reply to someone else.
Re: (Score:1)
> ONLY extremely liberal people disagree with using fluoride these days
These are the same ultra-liberals who are antivaxxers; the type is well known.
See this is exactly what I'm talking about (Score:1)
You Feel like you got something from your government when they banned fluoride. I'm literally not going to argue with you on this point you are factually wrong. Especially in places that have poor access to dental care. There's no point to arguing with someone who's is wrong as you are.
But you are beautifully confident that you got something from your government. They take all your money and you get to Pat yourself on the back because you have secret knowledge and secret studies that nobody else has.
Re: (Score:2)
> Even very liberal people question the use of fluoride these days. In my country, we are pretty liberal and almost all people here hate republicans. The biggest country's city where I live has banned fluoride in drinking water a long time ago
Name your country and city.
Re: (Score:2)
Pretty sure that would be Russia and Petrograd.
Re: (Score:3)
> The biggest country's city where I live has banned fluoride in drinking water a long time ago since we get enough simply by brushing our teeth so there is no need to ingest some every time we drink a glass of city water
Swing and a miss. The whole way the effects of fluoride were discovered is correlating dental health with local water supplies that had naturally occurring levels of fluoride. You CANNOT obtain the full benefit using topical applications. The fluoride is incorporated into the dentine as it accretes; toothpaste does NOT penetrate deeply into the tooth. Having it in the diet during childhood is key to having strong permanent teeth.
you're wasting your time arguing with them (Score:2)
Just make fun of them instead. They are either trolls, right wing extremists trying to use conspiracy theories to get power, or scared desperate people trying to make sense of the world in the only way they know how.
It doesn't matter what group they are you're not going to reach them. Once in a while if they are family and you know them IRL you might get them to tone down the worst of it.
The reason people want to believe in this nonsense is that the real world is random and chaotic and often just fuc
Re: For people wondering why they do this (Score:1)
The anti-fluoride and anti-vaxx movements have always been on the Democrat side. Under Trump, those anti-science conspiracies are being embraced by Republicans as well.
This is, once again, a reminder that Trump and MAGA are not conservative movements. Anti-science positions are not, and were never, solely the domain of one party. They just chose *different* anti-science positions. The Republican who believes that climate change isn't real is applying the same kind of wrongthink as the Democrat who believ
Re: (Score:2)
Anti-fluoride and anti-vax started in the lunatic left fringe, yes. The difference is that Democrats realize that those bozos are not qualified to be city dog-catchers, much less head of HHS. Note how nobody from the lunatic left is elected to positions of power. Mainstream Republicans took the stupidest ideas from the lunatic left and made them the center point of their platform.
So no, your "both sides are just as bad" whining is as accurate as RFK Jr. Have you been checked for brain worms lately?
Alternative facts (Score:2)
These are not errors, these are just alternative facts.
The citations are NOT the problem... (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is in the actual content of the report. It too is full of made up crap sourced from unknown origins all to support a questionable policy position by someone with no medical training and generally considered to be on the fringe on most topics.
The citations only prove that they're making crap up to support their arguments and positions.
Re: (Score:2)
At the very least, they are being obvious about it. This report was created with no real scientific input. See the citations (that don't exist) for proof.
A cleverer liar would use actual citations that support their position (there are always some, even if they are low-quality studies or minority opinions).
It's an extreme case... (Score:2)
... but this is absolutely yet another harbringer of how GenAI is already - not "going to" - decaying science and the law. This is obviously a special case where the prompts were manipulated to get a desired outcome, but even the innocuous "I saved time by using GenAI to look up my references" is basically throwing lumps of styrofoam into the concrete on which we build our civilization. Sooner or later the weak spots accumulate and the structure collapses. Perhaps the outcome we should be fearing isn't an a
Re: It's an extreme case... (Score:2)
Yeah, well put. Points of view creep into the more or less factual information undermining its value and veracity then you can't even agree on the starting points or axioms. Or worse, often in an argument today, the same facts lead to opposite conclusions. There is no way to argue . It's just points of view, says me. So there is no basis for argument ! Words have lost their meaning at that point.
Re: Cocksuckers for Big Pharma! (Score:2)
RFKj is just soliciting bribes just like his idol.
He's not against big pharma or fast food or anything else he's claimed to be against. He's only against them not giving him a piece.
Why is there a report at all? (Score:2)
Didn't RFK Jr learn anything from Trump's Big Beautiful Healthcare Finance Bill? All RFK Jr had to do is say he has a report, and then wave around a stack of blank papers. If he'd done that, there would be no bullshit to get called on.
There, fixed it for you (Score:1)
"A common hallmark of *POORLY PROMPTED* AI chatbots, such as ChatGPT, is unusually repetitive content that does not sound human or is inaccurate -- as well as the tendency to "hallucinate" studies or answers that appear to make sense but are not real."
Prompt: Verify all your responses against sources. Value accuracy over agreement and check my questions and stated facts for implied or explicit innaccuracy. Write in a midwestern grammar selection at 11th grade level. Use straightforward language and summ
Ridiculous Per Capita Health Expenditure Chart (Score:2)
The report includes a ridiculous "Health Expenditure Per Capita" and then goes on and assumes this applies to Americans across the board. This large number does not reflect at all what is spent on healthcare by typical Americans and has nothing at all to do with the health of a typical American. For numbers to correlate with health, you have to break them down based on what typical people are actually spending -- not what billionaires are spending on healthcare.
In 2021 these numbers were reported:
-
Like the saying goes (Score:5, Insightful)
The only qualified person Trump ever hired was Stormy Daniels.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
And he failed to pay her, as per his usual SOP.
Re: (Score:2)
And number that includes all "AI agents" that were gifted to his administration by those tax-funded LLM billionaires.
Re: (Score:2)
Under-rated comment. This administration is a clown show of destruction, and it's being run by some of the stupidest people to be in government work -- and that's saying a lot.
Republicans and MAGAs have destroyed 250 years of nation building in 4 months.
Re: (Score:1)
"and that's saying a lot."
The government gets the problems that business and private enterprise and the American people failed to solve. The buck stops with them because it must stop with them. That's why they have such a difficult time and why people like cannot understand why they simply cannot operate as a business. You wouldn't want them to. Grandma and Grandpa are not outputs or inputs to government, neither is the environment, health and safety, research into medical issues, etc.
And to make everything