New Science Distortion Alert: How AI Will Garble Government Reports

The White House’s new MAHA Report—led by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—was meant to diagnose America’s declining life expectancy. Instead, it exposed a glaring risk: AI-generated citations that turned solid science into junk. With dozens of fake, duplicated, or misattributed studies slipping into footnotes, experts say the reliance on AI “shortcuts” could fatally undermine policy-making—and trust in government research.

How AI Mangled the MAHA Report

Hallmark AI Footprints: Reviewers found repeated footnotes, wrong authors, dead links, and invented studies marked by “oaicite”—a telltale sign of OpenAI-powered reference tools.
Credibility Crisis: Nonexistent articles (like a spurious pediatrics study) were swapped in and later quietly replaced—but the damage was done: half of the report’s 522 citations needed fixes.
Expert Outrage: AI veteran Oren Etzioni called it “shoddy work,” while public‐health leaders demanded the report be junked until properly sourced. Even President Trump’s own executive order was tainted by the blunder.

Despite rapid corrections, the episode highlights a chilling reality: without rigorous oversight, AI’s “hallucinations” can poison evidence-based policy.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Q1: How did AI generate fake citations?
A1: AI reference tools scan massive databases and predict plausible article details. Without human verification, they “hallucinate” studies—creating believable but nonexistent citations.

Q2: Can governments still use AI for research?
A2: Yes—but only with strict checks. AI can accelerate literature reviews, but every reference must be validated against real databases, authors, and journals before publication.

Q3: What’s the lesson for future reports?
A3: Treat AI as a helper, not an author. Embed human fact-checkers at every step, enforce citation audits, and flag AI-origin markers to prevent garbage research from guiding policy.

Comparison: MAHA Report vs. Cuomo’s AI Fumble

This isn’t the first time AI hallucinations made headlines. Last month, New York’s Andrew Cuomo faced sanctions after his housing policy report misused AI-generated legal citations. Both cases reveal a common pitfall: AI can speed work—but without human rigor, it can also introduce errors that derail credibility and invite legal or political fallout.