RFK Jr. faces AI scandal after 'using ChatGPT' for his big MAHA report
The White House and the Health and Human Services Department were forced to respond Thursday to a bombshell report that identified multiple citations to academic articles buried within the report that did not actually exist.
Some of the errors appeared to carry hallmarks of generative AI which users have found is designed to provide an authoritative sounding answer when producing copy as it scrapes the internet for content and information.
Some references contain 'oaicite', which is indicative of the use of OpenAI, in their URLs.
The citation errors were confirmed by human beings who either said they didn't write some of the studies listed, or that their work relating to the health issues at hand came in other formats and publications. Some said interpretations of their data were also incorrect.
'The paper cited is not a real paper that I or my colleagues were involved with,' epidemiologist Katherine Keyes told NOTUS, which exposed many of the lapses. The feds have since purged seven citations from the report, which Kennedy released with much fanfare days ago.
Another academic whose work got cited, Mariana G. Figueiro, told the publication: 'The conclusions in the report are not accurate and the journal reference is incorrect. It was not published in Pediatrics. Also, the study was not done in children, but in college students.'
Thirty-seven of the report's citations occur multiple times, according to the Washington Post.
'Frankly, that's shoddy work,' Oren Etzioni, an AI expert at the University of Washington told the paper. 'We deserve better.'
At the White House Thursday, a reporter asked White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt directly if Kennedy and his team of cabinet members who compiled the report relied on AI.
'I can't speak to that. I would refer you to the Department of Health and Human Services. What I know is just what I told you,' she responded.
'We have complete confidence in Secretary Kennedy and his team at HHS,' she said, when asked about the reports that unearthed the fake references.
'I understand there was some formatting issues with the MAHA report that are being addressed and the report will be updated,' she said.
'But it does not negate the substance of the report, which, as you know, is one of the most transformative health reports that has ever been released by the federal government is and is backed on good science that has never been recognized by the federal government.
RFK, Jr., who has already drawn controversy for sowing doubts about vaccines and other views, gushed about the report before its release, which came after his team had a single public meeting.
'The report is the product of a consensual process, and it represents a collaborative effort of all the agencies and the White House. And it represents a consensus that is probably the strongest and most radical consensus by a government agency in history about the state of America's health,' he said.
'MAHA's become hot,' President Trump said of RFK, Jr.'s 'Make America Healthy Again' push.
Before its release some farm state Republican lawmakers had raised concerns that the MAHA report would go after pesticides and farm practices they consider critical for farm efficiency.
The report calls to examine the 'over-utilization of medication' such as steroids and questions the childhood vaccine schedule. But the author identified with a study showing a jump in use of corticosteroids 'denied writing it,' according to NOTUS, and called the conclusion an 'overgeneralization' of his other findings.
The number of errors mushroomed this week as more outsiders picked at the purported data. Psychiatry Professor Robert L. Findling didn't write the report attributed to him on 'Direct-to-consumer advertising of psychotropic medications for youth: A growing concern.'
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