RFK Jr’s Team Adds New Errors To Its ‘MAHA’ Report, Making The Fiasco Worse
Writing for SBM these days is a bit like being in one of those cash grab machines, though instead of money flying over the place, it’s bees and wasps. Every week brings a fresh round of horrors that reveals our medical establishment is flailing and in deeply over their heads. It’s impossible to keep track of it all.
According to the article MAHA Report On Chronic Disease In Us Kids Includes Fake Citations, Other Errors:
But the footnotes contain multiple errors. The false citations, first reported yesterday by the news site NOTUS, include non-existent studies on anxiety in adolescents, the impact of direct-to-consumer advertising on the prescribing of ADHD and antidepression medication for children, and overprescribing of oral corticosteroids in children with asthma. Additional reporting by the New York Times and the Washington Post found citations listing the wrong author, published papers with the wrong journal listed, and inaccurate summaries of correctly cited papers.
The Post also found that several citations appear to have been generated by artificial intelligence
“This is not an evidence-based report, and for all practical purposes, it should be junked at this point,” American Public Health Association Executive Director Georges Benjamin, MD, 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.”
That was followed-up by an article title RFK Jr’s Team Adds New Errors To Its ‘MAHA’ Report, Making The Fiasco Worse that said:
It seemed hard to believe this debacle could get worse, but it did. NOTUS reported in a follow-up article that several of the errors from the original report have been edited or removed, but in the process, administration officials have added new errors, including updated citations that “misinterpret scientific studies.”
Undeterred by this embarrassing debacle, our medical establishment plans to use AI at the FDA. According to the article FDA Rolls Out AI Tool Agency-Wide, Weeks Ahead Of Schedule:
FDA employees characterized the launch of the AI, called Elsa, as “rushed” and expressed concern the agency is both over-inflating its capabilities and failing to set guardrails.
Two employees familiar with the situation, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, told STAT that the tool is based on Anthropic’s Claude LLM and is being developed by consulting firm Deloitte. They also said that the tool has only been piloted in text summarization use cases, such as summarizing meeting minutes, and should only be used for daily administrative tasks, not scientific ones.
“I’m not sure in their rush to get it out that anyone is thinking through policy and use,” one employee said.
“Makary and DOGE think AI can replace staff and cut review times, but it decidedly cannot,” the employee added, referring to the cost-cutting U.S. DOGE Service. The FDA has cut thousands of employees since the new administration began, and employees with AI knowledge have been particularly hard-hit.
We can all hope Elsa works, but there’s no reason to think that our bumbling medical establishment will catch any errors it might make.
He’s so terrible during this interview that Brennan is left shaking her head as she wraps it up.
In addition to touting untested AI as the FDA’s savior, Dr. Marty Makary is using his influence and authority to protect Americans from the grave dangers of seed oils, talc, and COVID vaccines. He gave a cringeworthy interview to Face the Nation, prompting journalist Aaron Rupar to say:
Margaret Brennan totally exposes FDA Commissioner Makary for making it up as he goes and making conflicting recommendations in order to cast doubt on covid vaccines. He’s so terrible during this interview that Brennan is left shaking her head as she wraps it up.
I encourage you to watch the whole thing.
In the interview, Dr. Makary called the latest COVID variant “the common cold,” just like he did with Delta and Omicron. With his typical childishness and unprofessionalism, he called the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) a “kangaroo court,” and falsely said there is “no clinical data” on the COVID vaccine for children. Dr. Makary posted a clip on social media where he said:
We’re getting away from these blanket recommendations for healthy young Americans. We don’t want to see kids kicked out of school because a 12-year-old girl didn’t get a fifth COVID booster shot.
Children aren’t being kicked out of school for not getting a fifth COVID booster shot. Dr. Makary just made that up. That’s what he does. In contrast, some children are missing school because of Long COVID. Our medical establishment doesn’t care about them, however.
Dr. Makary also pointed to the vaccine’s unpopularity as a reason to ban it for heathy children, though of course his deluge of misinformation regarding pediatric COVID is likely a reason why many parents decline the vaccine. Ms. Brennan wisely responded by saying:
I don’t want to crowdsource my health guidance. You don’t go with popularity, you go with data.
Ms. Brennan cited data that COVID is not benign for all children, including some healthy ones, prompting Dr. Makary to claim that you can’t trust the CDC, a disingenuous talking point I discussed here 4 years ago.
Ms. Brennan also pointed out that Dr. Makary had previously listed pregnancy as a risk factor for severe COVID, and he had no explanation as to why, along with RFK Jr. and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, he planned to stop recommending the vaccine for this population. In 2023, Dr. Makary spread doubt about the COVID vaccine in pregnancy, writing articles such as Was the COVID Vaccine Safe for Pregnant Women?– spoiler alert, it was. However, during his interview, Dr. Makary claimed that articles such as this had nothing to do with low vaccination rates in pregnant women. Rather Dr. Makary said this was “probably because they want to see randomized trial data.” Dr. Makary presented no data to support his claim that obstetricians’ offices are full of patients demanding RCTs. “When do they get the data you are promising,” Ms. Brennan asked. Dr. Makary had no answer. Our medical leaders don’t feel it is their job the generate neutral, independent data for the American public.
Dr. Vinay Prasad faired no better when he stepped outside of his safe space. According to journalist Sarah Karlin-Smith, during a recent meeting Dr. Prasad was asked about the headline RFK Jr May Block Government Scientists From Publishing in Top Medical Journals. That prompted this exchange:
He says one of Kennedy’s issue is he wants govt papers publicly available – someone in audience yells out this has been policy for 20 years.
Unfortunately for Dr. Prasad, he can’t block his critics in the real world.
Dr. Prasad also continues to create medical reversals regarding RCTs. Though he wrote an essay in 2023 titled The Scientists Who Undermine Randomized Trials, now that he has responsibility for the first time, he sounds just like those dastardly scientists. “There have been several examples of scientists trying to undermine randomized trials— arguing they are not possible, not practical, or not useful. All of these arguments are false” he wrote back then. “My philosophy is RCT or STFU” he said. Yet today, when discussing rare diseases, he said, “Randomized trials are not always feasible, possible, or practical.”
Full video here
RFK Jr. Says Matthew Buzzelli, A Lawyer With No Public Health Experience, is the Acting CDC Director
Things are not also going well at the CDC, where the ineptitude and political interference of our medical establishment is leading to resignations. According to the article CDC Official Overseeing COVID-19 Vaccine Recommendations Resigns:
A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official said Tuesday she was resigning from her role overseeing updates to the agency’s COVID-19 vaccine recommendations, following an order by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to force an update to the agency’s guidance.
“My career in public health and vaccinology started with a deep-seated desire to help the most vulnerable members of our population, and that is not something I am able to continue doing in this role,” Dr. Lakshmi Panagiotakopoulos wrote in an email to the COVID-19 vaccines work group in the agency’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP)…
“More of us should be resigning in protest,” one federal health official told CBS News, in response to the news of Panagiotakopoulos leaving her role.
Of course, it’s not really clear who is even running things at the CDC as Dr. Jeremy Faust wrote in his article RFK Jr. Says Matthew Buzzelli, A Lawyer With No Public Health Experience, is the Acting CDC Director. This may be a good thing, however. As the article CDC Contradicts RFK Jr. on COVID Vaccine for Kids explained, science-based employees there appear to be trying to stand against anti-vaccine sentiment at other HHS agencies. Good for them.
“Out Of His Depth,” “Sold His Soul,” “Clueless”: NIH Staffers Speak Out About Director Bhattacharya.
The NIH is faring no better. Some recent headlines are: Here Are the Nearly 2,500 Medical Research Grants Canceled or Delayed by Trump, As the Trump Administration Slashes Federal Spending, Scientists Consider Leaving the U.S., A Harvard Scientist Built A Database Of 2,100 NIH Grant Terminations. Then His Own Funding Was Cut, and Why Trump’s Push For ‘Gold-Standard Science’ Has Researchers Alarmed. Further budget cuts are promised as reported in the article, White House Proposes Deep Cuts to HHS in FY2026 Budget, Reducing NIH to 8 Centers.
DOGE seems to be running the show there as described by the article NIH Killed Grants on Orders From Elon Musk’s DOGE and The Shrewd Startup Founder Who Led DOGE’s Cost-Cutting at HHS. In an interview with Science, the man who purportedly heads the NIH, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, refused to accept responsibility the chaos and purges there, saying “I had nothing to do with it… It’s not me personally… Those decisions are not up to me.”
Journalist Walker Bragman published two devastating articles revealing how Dr. Bhattacharya is perceived by NIH staffers. The first article, “I Believe It”: Bhattacharya Pushes Lab Leak Conspiracy At Contentious NIH Town Hall As Staffers Walk Out, shows dozens of NIH staffers walking out as his town hall. They also refused to applaud him when he walked out. The second article, “Out Of His Depth,” “Sold His Soul,” “Clueless”: NIH Staffers Speak Out About Director Bhattacharya, said:
“It’s a total shit show,” one agency staffer told Important Context, explaining that Bhattacharya seemed unaware of how NIH operated when he arrived. They said he had been promising reforms that were already part of the agency’s work.
“His attitude coming in has just been so condescending, and so like, ‘Oh, we’re going to make NIH great’… and ‘we’re going to make… science transparent, and we’re going to introduce all of these programs’ that, mind you, already exist,” the staffer said. “Like, these are things we actively do… You fired people that do those things that you say you want to do.”…
Insiders described Bhattacharya as “arrogant,” “in over his head,” “out of his league,” “out of his depth,” “clueless,” “weak,” and “full of shit.” The NIH director did not respond to our requests for comment.
“In some ways, I do feel vaguely sorry for him, because he is clueless, and he clearly does not know what he’s doing,” one staffer said. “But he’s also arrogant, and he thinks that he can just come in and tell us how to do our jobs, when he has no idea how science actually works.”…
The program officer speculated that Bhattacharya might be relying on “a lot of mental gymnastics to contort himself into believing he’s doing the right/best thing,” but said it ultimately did not matter because “either way, he is at fault.”
“No matter what he tells himself to sleep at night, people will suffer and potentially die because of the policies he’s allowing at NIH under his leadership,” they said…
Another said that while Bhattacharya had once been “respected,” “now he sounds like a joke, an ignorant political hack, every time he speaks… he comes across as someone who has sold his soul.”
You’re saying that Moderna is doing the study on their own product?
Meanwhile, now that he is the medical establishment and expected to produce results for the American public, RFK Jr. suddenly decided that Big Pharma vaccine-trials are just fine after all. He said:
I want to address those of you who have anxieties about @US_FDA’s limited approval of a new mRNA COVID vaccine for high-risk populations. Moderna has agreed to a true placebo-controlled trial of the new vaccine, which is similar to the existing mRNA vaccine but uses a smaller protein.
Predictably, his anti-vaxx base was not impressed by this plan to have Moderna study the Moderna vaccine. A woman by the name of Nurse Brenda said:
Excuse me sir, you used the wrong word. It’s not anxiety we are feeling. It’s betrayal. You’re saying that Moderna is doing the study on their own product? Without a true placebo? After being approved for our most vulnerable population? And yet artificial food dyes are banned on a whim. Common sense is dead, it seems.
Someone named Fiona Rose Diamond told RFK Jr.:
You’re a far cry from the man I spoke to in 2020-23. Back then, you called these mRNA shots “murder.” Now, you’ve either changed beyond recognition – or you were never the man I thought you were. Whatever conviction you once had, it’s gone. You’ve sold your soul, and God only knows what they’re holding over you to make you fall in line.
No one is satisfied with our medical establishment and thinks they are doing a good job. This is what they have to look forward to for the next 3.5 years.
Unfortunately, the rest of us are along for the ride.
