Maddow Blog-As more fake citations emerge in the 'MAHA' report, White House struggles with a defense

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To describe references to nonexistent scientific research as “some formatting issues” is like saying the Titanic confronted “some evening issues.”

As more fake citations emerge in the ‘MAHA’ report, White House struggles with a defense
To describe references to nonexistent scientific research as “some formatting issues” is like saying the Titanic confronted “some evening issues.” www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddo...

— Democracy Skies in Blueness - Resist (@democracyblue.bsky.social) 2025-05-30T13:28:42.960Z

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/fake-citations-emerge-maha-report-white-house-struggles-defense-rcna209915

Almost immediately after Donald Trump and his White House team unveiled “The MAHA Report: Making Our Children Healthy Again” last week, problems emerged. The Washington Post reported, for example, that some of the report’s suggestions “stretched the limits of science,” and offered “misleading representations” of scientific research.

A week later, a devastating report published by NOTUS advanced the underlying story considerably, highlighting the unambiguous fact that the MAHA document “misinterprets some studies and cites others that don’t exist, according to the listed authors.” Soon after, The New York Times identified “additional faulty references” in the report. From the Times’ article:

The Trump administration released a report last week that it billed as a “clear, evidence-based foundation” for action on a range of children’s health issues. But the report, from the presidential Make America Healthy Again Commission, cited studies that did not exist. These included fictitious studies on direct-to-consumer drug advertising, mental illness and medications prescribed for children with asthma.

While there’s been no official explanation for how, exactly, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his team managed to release a much-hyped official document with fake citations, multiple reports noted the likely culprit. As The Washington Post reported, “Some of the citations ... appear to have been generated using artificial intelligence, resulting in numerous garbled scientific references and invented studies, AI experts said Thursday.”

.....For example, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was pressed for some kind of explanation for the MAHA debacle. The president’s chief spokesperson responded by claiming there were “some formatting issues” with the document.

https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:iu4j537hox5huj4bwnwgub4z/post/3lqdc55klup2i

Link to tweet

.....Leavitt nevertheless added that the White House has “complete confidence” in Kennedy. She didn’t elaborate as to why, exactly, Kennedy remains in the president’s good graces, though it appears to have something to do with Trump’s indifference to whether the conspiracy theorist leading the Department of Health and Human Services gets things right or wrong.

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1. The MAHA Report Has Been Updated With Fresh Errors

One psychologist who is newly cited in the report said the updated reference misconstrues his research.

Link to tweet

https://www.notus.org/health-science/maha-report-update-citation-errors

The Trump administration’s clean up of the “Make America Healthy Again” Commission’s hallmark and error-riddled report is opening new questions about how the report’s authors drew some of its sweeping conclusions about the state of Americans’ health.

At least 18 of the original report’s citations have been edited or completely swapped out for new references since NOTUS first revealed the errors Thursday morning. While some of the original report’s inconsistencies have been changed, a few of the new updated citations continue to misinterpret scientific studies......

But as reporters found more inaccuracies within the report on Thursday, the White House stopped denoting changes and removed references to past corrections. Officials continued to update the report throughout the night to remove AI chatbot fingerprints and other errors, according to The Washington Post.

Another “correction” to address a nonexistent study cited in the original is still misstating the credited researcher’s conclusion, he told NOTUS.

The report initially cited a pulmonologist (though not a real paper he contributed to) to support the claim that “an estimated 25-40% of mild cases” of asthma are overprescribed drugs.

Pulmonologist Harold J. Farber acknowledged he did find overprescription in a very limited study on one Medicaid-managed care program in Texas, which used data from 2011 to 2015. But at the time, he rejected the idea that those results were at all generalizable before the report was updated.

This study would never survive fact checking and the peer review process used by real scientific publications. That is why Bob aka rfk jr. does not like these publications

[LetMyPeopleVote]

2. Maddow Blog-RFK Jr's team adds new errors to its 'MAHA' report, making the fiasco worse

Just when it seemed Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s "MAHA" report couldn't become more embarrassing, newly added errors have taken this to a new level.

RFK Jr’s team adds new errors to its ‘MAHA’ report, making the fiasco worse
Just when it seemed Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s "MAHA" report couldn't become more embarrassing, newly added errors have taken this to a new level. www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddo...

— Democracy Skies in Blueness - Resist (@democracyblue.bsky.social) 2025-06-02T16:03:46.168Z

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/rfk-jrs-team-adds-new-errors-maha-report-making-fiasco-worse-rcna210319

A week later, a devastating report published by NOTUS advanced the underlying story considerably, highlighting the unambiguous fact that the MAHA document “misinterprets some studies and cites others that don’t exist, according to the listed authors.” Soon after, The New York Times identified “additional faulty references” in the report, including instances in which the document’s authors pointed to “fictitious studies.”

It seemed hard to believe this debacle could get worse, but it did. NOTUS reported in a follow-up article that several of the errors from the original report have been edited or removed, but in the process, administration officials have added new errors, including updated citations that “misinterpret scientific studies.” From the article:

One study NOTUS identified as misinterpreted in the original report was intended to support the claim that psychotherapy is more effective for children than medication for treating mental health concerns. That study was swapped out with a new “systematic overview” authored by psychologist Pim Cuijpers, who told NOTUS via email that MAHA’s new citation is also wrong. Cuijpers said his referenced study doesn’t cover psychiatric medications in children at all — the research was focused on adults. The citation is located in a section of the MAHA report titled, “American children are highly medicated — and it’s not working.”

When the White House was pressed last week for some kind of explanation for this fiasco — which appeared to be the result of misusing an AI program — press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed there were “some formatting issues” with the document, a defense that continues to be unintentionally funny but not persuasive.

The broader point is not to simply mock officials’ foibles. As the original NOTUS article noted, “As the Trump administration cuts research funding for federal health agencies and academic institutions and rejects the scientific consensus on issues like vaccines and gender-affirming care, the issues with its much-heralded MAHA report could indicate lessening concern for scientific accuracy at the highest levels of the federal government.”.....

Indeed, The Associated Press reported on Saturday that Americans “are losing a vast array of people and programs dedicated to keeping them healthy.” The AP added that recent cuts imposed by the Trump administration have reduced the nation’s public health system “to a shadow of what it once was, threatening to undermine even routine work at a time when the nation faces the deadliest measles outbreak since at least the 1990s, rising whooping cough cases and the risk that bird flu could spread widely among people.”

The AP concluded, “The moves reflect a shift that Americans may not fully realize, away from the very idea of public health.”

The more the health secretary and his team suffer humiliations of their own making, the more difficult it becomes to have confidence that these officials have any idea what they’re doing as the nation’s public health system suffers.