'Make America Healthy Again' report cites nonexistent studies: authors
At least four of the studies cited in a flagship White House report on children's health do not exist, authors listed in the document told AFP Thursday, casting doubt on the paper outlining US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s agenda.
The highly anticipated "Make America Healthy Again" (MAHA) report was released on May 22 by the presidential commission tasked with assessing drivers of childhood chronic disease.
But it includes broken citation links and credits authors with papers they say they did not write.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt described the mishaps as "formatting issues" during a press briefing Thursday and said the report will be updated to address them.
"It does not negate the substance of the report," said Leavitt, who expressed confidence in Kennedy and his team, and insisted that their work was "backed on good science."
The errors were first reported Thursday by NOTUS, a US digital news website affiliated with the nonprofit Allbritton Journalism Institute.
Noah Kreski, a Columbia University researcher listed as an author of a paper on adolescent anxiety and depression during the Covid-19 pandemic, told AFP the citation is "not one of our studies" and "doesn't appear to be a study that exists at all."
The citation includes a link that purports to send users to an article in the peer-reviewed medical journal JAMA, but which is broken.
Jim Michalski, a spokesman for JAMA Network, said it "was not published in JAMA Pediatrics or in any JAMA Network journal."
Columbia University epidemiologist Katherine Keyes, who was also listed as an author of the supposed JAMA study, told AFP she does research on the topic but does not know where the statistics credited to her came from, and that she "did not write that paper."
"I would be happy to send this information to the MAHA committee to correct the report, although I have not yet received information on where to reach them."
- 'Totally fabricated' -
Guohua Li, another Columbia University professor apparently named in the citation, said the reference is "totally fabricated" and that he does not even know Kreski.
AFP also spoke with Harold Farber, pediatrics professor at Baylor College of Medicine, who said the paper attributed to him "does not exist" nor had he ever collaborated with the co-authors credited in the MAHA report.
Similarly, Brian McNeill, spokesperson for Virginia Commonwealth University, confirmed that professor Robert Findling did not author a paper the report says he wrote about advertising of psychotropic medications for youth.
A fourth paper on ADHD medication was also not published in the journal Pediatrics in 2008 as claimed in the MAHA report, according to Alex Hulvalchick, media relations specialist for the journal's publisher, the American Academy of Pediatrics.
- 'Rife with misinformation' -
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) declined to comment, referring AFP's questions to the White House.
At her briefing, Leavitt declined to answer how the report was produced and whether artificial intelligence tools may have been used to craft it, directing those questions back to HHS.
The Democratic National Committee blasted the report as "rife with misinformation" in a Thursday press release, saying Kennedy's agency "is justifying its policy priorities with studies and sources that do not exist."
Kennedy was approved as health secretary earlier this year despite widespread alarm from the medical community over his history of promoting vaccine misinformation and denying scientific facts.
Since taking office, he has ordered the National Institutes of Health to probe the causes of autism -- a condition he has long falsely tied to the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine.
The report's chronic disease references appear to nod to that same disproven theory, discredited by numerous studies since the idea first aired in a late 1990s paper based on falsified data.
It also criticizes the "over-medicalization" of children, citing surging prescriptions of psychiatric drugs and antibiotics, and blaming "corporate capture" for skewing scientific research.
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Explaining the 1000 deleted text messages, Ms Saroukos said if the couple were having a disagreement, she would delete their conversation on her iPhone to stop her re-reading the messages. She claimed there was nothing officials could not recover and read from the deleted section on her phone. 'They are just saying because I deleted the text messages, it's suspicious. Again, the only thing I can come back and say with that is, it's not a bloody crime to delete text messages between you and your partner,' she said. 'It's my f***ing phone. I'm not committing an offence. They've just grabbed that and run with it and they're missing out the fact they actually read the deleted text messages and there was nothing (illegal) there.' In regards to Homeland Security claiming there were varying statements from she and her husband about their future, she claimed the long-term plan was for her husband to apply for a visa and move to Australia after leaving the military, therefore she had no intention of getting a green card as a military spouse. Ms Saroukos told that her husband had only mentioned he would start an application for a green card while she was being questioned because of the sudden difficulty she was facing travelling with an ESTA. 'If I was going to move to the US, I would have done it a long time ago. I would not be spending thousands of dollars going back and forth on plane tickets to go see my husband and I would have already started an application if that was the case,' she said. 'Not once did I ever say nor was there any plan that I was going to permanently live in the United States.' 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'They were asking me about ice and meth and whether I knew how much was being imported from New Zealand.' She said she had 'no idea' how to answer the questions and was 'just dumbfounded'. She was also grilled me on her income, marriage and phone history. Ms Saroukos was then subjected to a DNA swab, which she was given no explanation for, she claimed. She was further forced to sign a document declaring she was not a part of a cartel and had no affiliation with gang members. In the end, Ms Saroukos was still denied entry to the US. 'I've never been so terrified in my life. I froze. They said 'We'll be sending you to jail.' I was just shaking, sweating – I couldn't believe it,' she said. Ms Saroukos said she was handcuffed, subjected to an in-depth cavity search and taken to a federal detention facility, where she was fingerprinted again, ordered to strip naked, squat and cough, and handed prison issued briefs and green outerwear. After a night in prison, she was taken back to the airport to fly home to Sydney. Ms Saroukos said her mother and husband were not told of her whereabouts while she was detained. 'I never want to return to the United States,' she said, adding that her husband was she was hopeful her husband could eventually move to Australia. — with reporting by Ella Mcilveen Why denied tourists can end up in federal prison CBP has long had strong powers to deny entry, detain and deport foreigners at their discretion when travellers arrive in the country even if they have a valid visa or ESTA. However, what we are seeing under the Trump administration is described as 'enhanced vetting'. Australians are being warned to not assume they are exempt to more intense checks, including inspections of emails, text messages or social media accounts at the airport. Melissa Vincenty, a US immigration lawyer and Australian migration agent who is managing director of Worldwide Migration Partners, told recently that being taken to federal prison with no criminal record, no drugs or anything that is a danger to society is the reality of being denied entry to the US in Hawaii. Ms Vincenty, a dual-citizen who was a deportation defence lawyer in Honolulu before moving to Australia, explained the state did not have an immigration facility so people were taken to the Federal Detention Center Honolulu, where there was no separate wing for immigration. It meant tourists who were denied entry to the US could be held alongside those awaiting trial — or who have been convicted and were waiting to be transferred to a mainland prison for serious federal crimes, such as kidnapping, bank robbery or drug crimes. 'It's like in the movies — you go there and there's bars, you get strip searched, all your stuff is taken away from you, you're not allowed to call anybody, nobody knows where you are,' Ms Vincenty told in April after the experience of two young German tourists being strip searched and thrown in prison made global headlines. Ms Vincenty said for Australians who were denied entry to the US in other locations like Los Angeles, San Francisco or Dallas, being held in detention facilities until the next available flight home was a real risk as there weren't constant return flights to Australia — meaning you might have to wait until the next day. If not taken to a detention facility, some travellers may stay sitting for hours in what is called a secondary inspection at the airport. A secondary inspection includes further vetting such as searching a travellers' electronic devices. 'That period can last from half an hour to 15 hours or more,' she said.
