Democracy Dies in Darkness

White House MAHA Report may have garbled science by using AI, experts say

The report, led by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., was intended to address the reasons for the decline in Americans’ life expectancy.

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Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks during a Make America Healthy Again Commission event at the White House on May 22. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)

Some of the citations that underpin the science in the White House’s sweeping “MAHA Report” appear to have been generated using artificial intelligence, resulting in numerous garbled scientific references and invented studies, AI experts said Thursday.

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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 first reported by the online news outlet NOTUS on Thursday morning.

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