Report to child health: Media: US government cites non-existent studies

Fake studies, invented researchers and false interpretations: According to media research, the US government has quoted sources in an official report that do not exist. The US online magazine “Notus” found in the recently published “Make Our Children Healthy Again” Report (Maha report) of the White House on health problems for children cited sources that should not be found.

“Notus” belongs to the non -profit Allbritton Journalism Institute, which media entrepreneur Robert Allbritton – also founder of the news offer “politico” – has launched and which has been committed to training journalists.

Three examples from the research:

The epidemiologist Katherine Keyes is listed in the Maha report as the first author of a study on fears of young people. Although Keyes researched in this area, “Notus” said: “The quoted study is not a real study in which I or my colleagues were involved.” The study does not appear in the table of contents of the issue of the specialist magazine “Jama Pediatrics”. Virginia Commonwealth University employs one of the allegedly cited authors, Robert L. Findling. However, unlike in the Maha report, the latter did not study a study on the advertising for psychoactive substances for young people, the University of “Notus” said. Another listed first author of a study on ADHD medication called “Shah, MB” does not seem to be an ADHD’s researcher-at least none that is quoted in relevant portals.

“With another 20 sources, the content from the context was torn or the results were shown incorrectly,” said Margaret Manto, one of the journalists responsible for research, the “Spiegel”. In addition, many citation errors, non -functioning links as well as the content of misinterpretations of study results were demonstrated. The “New York Times” also entered the research and found further inconsistencies.

White house plays out mistakes – but removes the sources

Confronted with the allegations, the White House played all of this down all of this as “smaller citation and formatting errors”. The Maha report’s statement remains, emphasized a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Health, Emily Hilliard-“a historical and transformative evaluation of the government to understand the epidemic of chronic diseases from which the children of our nation suffer”.

However, according to “Notus”, the government published an updated version of the Maha report, in which the seven references were removed for non-existent sources.

“These are not formatting errors, but serious defects,” Journalist Manto told the “Spiegel”. “The report would not get through any peer review.” The procedure is described in which scientific studies are examined by independent scientists in their area before their publication in specialist magazines.