MAHA report cites nonexistent sources, news outlet says

The Health Department’s first report on children’s health from the Make America Healthy Again Commission cited seven nonexistent studies, according to NOTUS, an online publication by the Allbritton Journalism Institute. The 73-page report also contained many broken links and citation errors, NOTUS reported.

One of the studies listed epidemiologist Katherine Keyes as its lead author. She told NOTUS she’d done research on the topic—anxiety in adolescents—but had never written such a paper. The study didn’t seem to have ever been published in the JAMA Pediatrics journal.

NOTUS went on to accuse the report of citing two other nonexistent studies as support for its claim that a rise in direct-to-consumer drug advertisements led to more ADHD and antidepressant prescriptions for kids. The MAHA report also misstated conclusions or parameters of several other studies, the outlet said.

How did the White House respond? White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Thursday told reporters she was aware of “formatting issues” that needed to be addressed and that the report would be updated. Such issues don’t negate the substance of the report, Leavitt said. The secretary said she could not comment on whether artificial intelligence was used to produce the report.

President Donald Trump last week issued an executive order titled “Restoring Gold Standard Science,” that directed government agencies to transparently and accurately evaluate scientific evidence used in decision-making.

Dig deeper: Read my previous story on key points from the MAHA report.