The MAHA Report: Make America Hallucinate Again
Artificial intelligence sometimes produces artificial information that has no connection to reality. The term of art for this phenomenon is AI hallucinations. This week we learned that at least some parts of the MAHA report might have sprung from such hallucinations. It listed references that don’t exist and conclusions for other references that were not actually the conclusions in those papers. So we wonder if MAHA might ultimately serve only to Make America Hallucinate Again.
Studies That Don’t Exist
Emily Kennard and Margaret Manto reported for Notus that citations of evidence in the report were “rife” with errors that range from broken links to misstated conclusions. “Seven of the cited sources don’t appear to exist at all,” they wrote.
The New York Times confirmed the errors that Kennard and Manto identified and dug deeper to find more. The Washington Post looked further and concluded that it “bears hallmarks of the use of artificial intelligence in its citations.” Garbled citations and invented studies underpin the report’s conclusions, says The Post in its analysis of the situation.
“Pay No Attention”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt offered glib reassurances that we should ignore these factual problems:
“I understand there were some formatting issues with the MAHA report that are being addressed and the report will be updated. But it does not negate the substance of the report.”
Who Needs Academic Journals Anyway?
Perhaps it is more than a coincidence that these errors came to light just as HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spoke of plans to bar scientists from publishing in top tier scientific journals:
“We’re probably going to stop publishing in the Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, and those other journals because they’re all corrupt.”
He described plans to create his own journals at HHS, saying his journals would “become the preeminent journals, because if you get funding, it is anointing you as a good, legitimate scientist.”
Yes indeed. There’s more than one way to make America hallucinate again.
Click here, here, and here for more on the issues with fabricated and false citations in the MAHA report.
Poet’s Dream, painting by Odilon Redon / WikiArt
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May 31, 2025
