Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s error-laden Make America Healthy Again report may have been crafted with the help of artificial intelligence.
Some footnotes in Kennedy’s much-touted report on Americans’ health include URLs with the marker “oaicite,” The Washington Post reported, which indicates the use of OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT.
The 73-page document cites over 500 works to support its assertions on issues ranging from vaccine safety to the dangers of ultra-processed foods, but a NOTUS report found that many of its citations misrepresented existing research or referenced studies that do not exist.
Oren Etzioni, a University of Washington professor who studies AI, told the Post that he was shocked by the sloppiness of the MAHA report.
“Frankly, that’s shoddy work,” Etzioni said. “We deserve better.”
The White House has scrambled to revise the report since NOTUS published its findings Thursday, fixing broken links and deleting one of the “oaicite” markers, according to the Post.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has acknowledged “some formatting issues” with the report but maintained that they “do not negate the substance of the report,” which she called “one of the most transformative health reports that has ever been released by the federal government and is backed on good science that has never been recognized by the federal government.”
She did not say whether the report was generated by AI, referring questions on the matter to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
The Daily Beast has reached out to HHS for comment.
Georges Benjamin, the executive director of the American Public Health Association, said the flawed references in the report undermine its credibility.
“It should be junked at this point,” he told the Post. “It cannot be used for any policymaking. It cannot even be used for any serious discussion, because you can’t believe what’s in it.”
Published on May 22, the document was written by a commission of Trump Cabinet officials and government scientific leaders to address a rise in chronic diseases among American children. However, Kennedy—an anti-vaccine activist and environmental lawyer—has refused to name specific authors.
The report, which calls for a reevaluation of the childhood vaccine schedule and claims that American children are overmedicated and undernourished, is intended to inform policy recommendations to be released later this year.
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