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Yahoo
2 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
RFK Jr. may stop government scientists from publishing in top journals
May 29 (UPI) -- U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said this week that he may no longer allow government scientists to publish research in top medical journals. Kennedy made the statement on a podcast called The Ultimate Human, on which he called the journals "corrupt" and said they were controlled by drug companies. "We're probably going to stop publishing in The Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA and those other journals," Kennedy said. All three journals are known for publishing peer-reviewed studies and are widely read by health professionals around the world. JAMA and The Lancet each get more than 30 million visits to their websites every year. The New England Journal of Medicine reaches more than 1 million readers weekly, in print and online, The Washington Post reported. None of the journals responded right away to Kennedy's comments. Kennedy said he wants HHS to create its own journals instead. They would "become the preeminent journals, because if you get [NIH] funding, it is anointing you as a good, legitimate scientist." But some public health experts strongly disagreed. "Banning NIH-funded researchers from publishing in leading medical journals and requiring them to publish only in journals that carry the RFK Jr. seal of approval would delegitimize taxpayer-funded research," Dr. Adam Gaffney, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, told The Post. Gaffney also warned that drug approvals rely on science. While saying it's important to guard against commercial interests, he warned that Kennedy's plans - along with funding cuts and anti-vaccine views - could hurt public health. On the podcast, Kennedy also criticized government agencies under HHS, including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, National Institutes of Health and Medicare and Medicaid offices. He described them as "sock puppets" for the pharmaceutical industry. The podcast came out shortly after Kennedy announced his department would stop recommending the COVID-19 vaccine for healthy children and pregnant women, bypassing CDC guidance. Last week, the administration also released a new "Make America Health Again" report that challenged common views in medicine, including on vaccines. The Post said the report included misleading information and claims not backed by strong evidence. In April, a U.S. attorney sent a rare letter to the journal Chest, questioning its editorial policies. Critics said the move threatened freedom of speech, The Post reported. Meanwhile, NIH funding has dropped by more than $3 billion since January, and many top universities are losing out on funding for research. Kennedy has also led a major staff reduction at HHS, with about 20,000 federal workers cut - affecting almost every part of the agency, The Post said. The cuts and funding freezes have led some U.S. scientists to consider leaving the country for jobs elsewhere. Countries like France, Germany, Spain and China are now actively recruiting American researchers. More information The Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England has more about the role of journals. Copyright © 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
UPI
2 days ago
- Health
- UPI
RFK Jr. may stop government scientists from publishing in top journals
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. criticized government agencies under HHS, including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, National Institutes of Health and Medicare and Medicaid offices. He described them as "sock puppets" for the pharmaceutical industry. Adobe stock/HealthDay May 29 (UPI) -- U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said this week that he may no longer allow government scientists to publish research in top medical journals. Kennedy made the statement on a podcast called The Ultimate Human, on which he called the journals "corrupt" and said they were controlled by drug companies. "We're probably going to stop publishing in The Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA and those other journals," Kennedy said. All three journals are known for publishing peer-reviewed studies and are widely read by health professionals around the world. JAMA and The Lancet each get more than 30 million visits to their websites every year. The New England Journal of Medicine reaches more than 1 million readers weekly, in print and online, The Washington Post reported. None of the journals responded right away to Kennedy's comments. Kennedy said he wants HHS to create its own journals instead. They would "become the preeminent journals, because if you get [NIH] funding, it is anointing you as a good, legitimate scientist." But some public health experts strongly disagreed. "Banning NIH-funded researchers from publishing in leading medical journals and requiring them to publish only in journals that carry the RFK Jr. seal of approval would delegitimize taxpayer-funded research," Dr. Adam Gaffney, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, told The Post. Gaffney also warned that drug approvals rely on science. While saying it's important to guard against commercial interests, he warned that Kennedy's plans - along with funding cuts and anti-vaccine views - could hurt public health. On the podcast, Kennedy also criticized government agencies under HHS, including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, National Institutes of Health and Medicare and Medicaid offices. He described them as "sock puppets" for the pharmaceutical industry. The podcast came out shortly after Kennedy announced his department would stop recommending the COVID-19 vaccine for healthy children and pregnant women, bypassing CDC guidance. Last week, the administration also released a new "Make America Health Again" report that challenged common views in medicine, including on vaccines. The Post said the report included misleading information and claims not backed by strong evidence. In April, a U.S. attorney sent a rare letter to the journal Chest, questioning its editorial policies. Critics said the move threatened freedom of speech, The Post reported. Meanwhile, NIH funding has dropped by more than $3 billion since January, and many top universities are losing out on funding for research. Kennedy has also led a major staff reduction at HHS, with about 20,000 federal workers cut - affecting almost every part of the agency, The Post said. The cuts and funding freezes have led some U.S. scientists to consider leaving the country for jobs elsewhere. Countries like France, Germany, Spain and China are now actively recruiting American researchers. More information The Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England has more about the role of journals. Copyright © 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
RFK Jr. may bar government scientists from publishing in medical journals
Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he will ban government scientists from publishing in leading medical journals and proposed creating an 'in-house' publication by the department. 'We are probably going to stop publishing in the Lancet, the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA and those other journals because they are all corrupt,' Kennedy said during an episode of 'The Ultimate Human' podcast. Kennedy said such publications are 'vessels' for pharmaceutical companies. The three publications Kennedy named have published original, peer-reviewed research since their respective foundings in the 1800s. They are all consistently ranked as the top medical journals in the world and are critical in sharing scientific information to millions of people across the globe. JAMA alone receives more than 30 million visits to its website a year. A spokesperson for the New England Journal of Medicine told The Hill it had an 'impeccable record of scientific rigor and independence.' 'We use rigorous peer review and editorial processes to ensure the objectivity and reliability of the research we publish,' they added. JAMA and the Lancet did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Hill. Kennedy said agencies within the HHS will create their own 'in-house' journals that will become the preeminent journals in their field. 'They are going to become the preeminent journals, because if you get NIH [National Institutes of Health] funding it is anointing you as a good, legitimate scientist,' he said. Kennedy's comments on the podcast come shortly after he announced the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will stop recommending the COVID-19 vaccine for children and pregnant women. As of Wednesday, the agency had not updated their vaccine schedule to reflect Kennedy's announcement. His appearance on the podcast also comes a week after the Trump administration released its MAHA report which contradicted many medical conventions, including on vaccines and medications that have long been deemed safe. In the report, the administration expressed concern over children taking too many medications. 'There is a concerning trend of overprescribing medications to children, often driven by conflicts of interest in medical research, regulation, and practice,' the report reads. 'This has led to unnecessary treatments and long-term health risks.' Kennedy's comments and the report come as the scientific community grows increasingly worried the Trump administration will further roll back scientific progress. On Friday, Trump ordered federal agencies to overhaul how they handle their scientific research, blaming them for contributing to a loss in trust of science due to their handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change. Thousands of federal workers have been fired or laid off since Trump's inauguration in late January and his administration's sweeping funding cuts have caused the NIH's funding to fall by $3 billion since late January. Updated: 3:44 p.m. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
RFK Jr. Denigrates Privately Funded Medical Research
President Donald Trump's second administration has targeted government spending in various forms. One example is federal funding for medical research: Trump has cut at least $1.8 billion in funding for grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), according to an analysis published in The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), and his annual budget proposal would cut NIH funding even further. On its own, this scenario is not as alarming as some may say. Private companies spend more on medical research per year than the federal government. But this week, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took a shot at private funders as well—raising the question: Who does the administration think should fund medical research? "NIH has $46 billion that it allocates to science every year," Kennedy said on an episode of the podcast The Ultimate Human. "Unfortunately, that system has been corrupted through a number of different vectors, so the people who get the money tend to be people who have been approved by the industry." Kennedy called the current system "an old boys' network," where private actors fund studies primarily dedicated to preserving pharmaceutical companies' profits. "The private funding is coming from industries," he added, who "write the outcome before they write the study, in many cases." While Kennedy briefly allowed that "that also happens in the public sphere," he placed the majority of the blame squarely on the private sector, and he targeted medical journals for punishment. "We're probably going to stop publishing in The Lancet, The New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, and those other journals because they're all corrupt," he charged. "Unless these journals change dramatically, we are going to stop NIH scientists from publishing there, and we're going to create our own journals in-house." Ironically, The Lancet's biggest and most infamous scandal involved a 1998 study determining a link between the MMR vaccine—routinely given to inoculate children against measles, mumps, and rubella—and autism spectrum disorders. The Lancet later retracted the study and its author was stripped of his license to practice medicine. "The claim that vaccines cause autism has been comprehensively debunked," wrote Ronald Bailey for Reason. Nevertheless, Kennedy apparently still believes it, saying as recently as July 2023, "I do believe that autism comes from vaccines." In April, Kennedy appointed David Geier, a vaccine "skeptic," to head a government study on the potential links between vaccines and autism. Steven Black, head of the Kaiser Permanente Vaccine Study Center, told The New York Times in 2005 that Geier and his father, a physician who has since been stripped of his medical license, practiced "voodoo science," adding, "The problem with the Geiers' research is that they start with the answers and work backwards"—exactly what Kennedy now accuses pharmaceutical companies of doing. Of course, medical journals are not perfect. "Medical journals often contain poor science," according to a 2006 article from The Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. "The journals have, for example, published many reports of treatments applied to single cases and to series of cases, which rarely allow confident conclusions because of the absence of controls." But it's foolish for Kennedy to suggest the corrupting element is business, and that doing everything from within the federal government would fix the incentive structure. "If government funds research, it must decide which projects to fund, allowing political forces to influence the choice," Jeffrey Miron and Jacob P. Winter wrote at the Cato Institute in 2023. "President George W. Bush limited federal funding for stem cell research that used human embryos in response to pressure from anti-abortion forces. The recent affirmative action case against Harvard is a legal issue because Harvard accepts federal research funding. The National Institute on Drug Abuse has been criticized for displaying bias in favor of drug prohibition." Miron and Winter argued that privately funded research not only saves the taxpayers money but actually goes further than government grants: "Between 2010 and 2019, 200 organizations received 80 percent of National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Science Foundation (NSF) grants, whereas the top 200 recipients of private funding received only 33 percent of donations. Scientists have explained how private funding has enabled them to explore new ideas, adjust budgets, and avoid lengthy bureaucratic approval processes." NSF found in 2022 that over the previous two decades, federal money fell from 60 percent to 40 percent as a share of total research spending, meanwhile "the share funded by business has increased." In 2022, while 40 percent of research was funded by government, 37 percent was funded by business. In 2018, two of every three dollars spent on medical research and development came from private businesses, three times what was spent by federal agencies. The Trump administration has made NIH grants a target for potential cuts. Despite breathless reporting of the potential consequences, private sources account for a similar portion of total research and development dollars, and a much larger portion of medical funding in particular. But for Kennedy to attack privately funded research while the administration he works for cuts publicly funded research, it's worth asking where they expect the money to come from. The post RFK Jr. Denigrates Privately Funded Medical Research appeared first on
The Hill
3 days ago
- Health
- The Hill
Kennedy takes on ‘conflicts of interest' in medical journals
The Big Story Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wants to prohibit government scientists from publishing work in medical journals and instead publish work in new 'in-house' publications. © The Hill, Greg Nash During a Tuesday episode of the podcast 'The Ultimate Human,' Kennedy threatened to stop government scientists from publishing in journals like The Lancet, the New England Journal of Medicine and JAMA because they are beholden to the pharmaceutical industry. All three of those journals have published original, peer-reviewed research for decades and contribute to the distribution of scientific information across the planet. Kennedy called the journals 'corrupt,' adding that they only spread propaganda from pharmaceutical companies and are no longer scientifically credible. The forthcoming 'in-house' journals will replace the trio as the pre-eminent scientific journals. 'They are going to become the pre-eminent journals, because if you get NIH funding it is anointing you as a good, legitimate scientist,' he said. The podcast episode aired the same day Kennedy announced that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would stop recommending the COVID-19 vaccine to children and pregnant women. Kennedy's comments also come a week after the Trump administration released its long-awaited MAHA report, which contradicted several medical conventions related to vaccines and medications previously deemed safe to use. Kennedy has long believed that medications like vaccines and psychiatric drugs are overused in the U.S. and causing some health problems among children. In the report, the Trump administration expresses concern over American children taking too many medications, noting that more children are taking stimulant drugs, antidepressants, antipsychotics and asthma medication than they did 30 years ago. 'There is a concerning trend of overprescribing medications to children, often driven by conflicts of interest in medical research, regulation, and practice,' the report reads. 'This has led to unnecessary treatments and long-term health risks.' Welcome to The Hill's Health Care newsletter, we're Nathaniel Weixel, Joseph Choi and Alejandra O'Connell-Domenech — every week we follow the latest moves on how Washington impacts your health. Did someone forward you this newsletter? Subscribe here. Essential Reads How policy will be impacting the health care sector this week and beyond: Even low levels of lead exposure may worsen academic performance: Study Academic achievement among adolescents may be affected by early childhood lead exposure at much lower levels than previously assumed, according to a new study. Just a small climb in blood concentrations of this toxic metal — still within the range currently deemed acceptable by public health agencies — was associated with worse performance on standardized tests, scientists found in the study, published Wednesday in Environmental … Texas Senate approves bill strictly defining man and woman based on reproductive organs The Texas Senate has sent legislation to Gov. Greg Abbott (R) that would strictly define genders across state law based on male and female reproductive organs — potentially creating new hurdles for transgender and intersex Texans whose gender identity would revert to the sex they were assigned at birth in state records. Abbott spokesman Andrew Mahaleris confirmed to The Hill on Wednesday that the governor plans to approve the … Missouri Supreme Court leaves abortion ban in place Abortion is now banned in Missouri again after the state's highest court overturned two lower court rulings blocking its abortion ban. The Missouri Supreme Court ruled a district judge used the wrong standard in two rulings — one in December and another in February — that allowed abortions to resume in the state. Abortion has been almost entirely banned in Missouri since the 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade. Missourians … In Other News Branch out with a different read from The Hill: Senate Democrats preview Medicaid messaging in new ad The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee rolled out a new ad hitting Senate Republicans over President Trump's legislative agenda as the upper chamber prepares to take up the bill. Around the Nation Local and state headlines on health care: What We're Reading Health news we've flagged from other outlets: What Others are Reading Most read stories on The Hill right now: Trump responds to TACO trade criticisms: 'You call that chickening out?' President Trump on Wednesday bristled when asked about a new Wall Street term based on his tendency to reverse his tariff threats, defending his approach … Read more Trump pardons former GOP Rep. Michael Grimm amid clemency spree President Trump on Wednesday took a slew of clemency actions, including pardoning former Rep. Michael Grimm (R-N.Y.) and commuting the sentence of … Read more Thank you for signing up! Subscribe to more newsletters here
