"All corrupt" Trump's health minister on a crusade against major scientific journals

By The New Obs with AFP

Published on May 28, 2025 at 9:46 p.m.

Donald Trump, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Secretary of Education Linda McMahon attend a Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission event at the White House, Thursday, May 22, 2025, in Washington. — Donald Trump, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Secretary of Education Linda McMahon at a Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission event at the White House, Thursday, May 22, 2025, in Washington. JACQUELYN MARTIN/AP/SIPA

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US Secretary of Health Robert Kennedy Jr. this week attacked major medical journals that he believes are in the hands of pharmaceutical companies, threatening to ban the publication in these media of work produced by US government scientists.

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"We're probably going to stop publishing in the Lancet, the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA and other journals because they're all corrupt," Donald Trump's secretary of state said in a podcast broadcast on Tuesday, May 28, marking a new step in his offensive against established scientific authorities.

"Unless these journals change radically, we will prevent NIH scientists from publishing in these journals and we will create our own journals," he continued, speaking to influencer Gary Brecka.

"In the hands of the laboratories"

Challenged for his anti-vaccine positions and his promotion of certain ideas opposed to the scientific consensus, RFK Jr. has for years denounced the increased influence of pharmaceutical giants in the American medical system and had already called into question these scientific journals, among the most prestigious and influential.

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Founded in the 19th century, The Lancet, the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), and JAMA play a central role in medical research. The studies they publish are "peer-reviewed," meaning they are carefully examined by experts specializing in the relevant subjects.

But according to the minister, who highlights in particular the testimony of Marcia Angell, a former senior official at the NEJM, these headlines are not reliable because they are in the hands of pharmaceutical laboratories.

"Bureaucratic proliferation"

"You have to pay $10,000 to get the study published. So the pharmaceutical company concocts a study that shows the result it wants (...) and publishes it," he accused.

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In the early 2000s, Marcia Angell published a book on pharmaceutical giants in which she wrote, among other things, that it was "no longer possible to believe much of the published clinical research."

Robert Kennedy Jr. also accuses several health agencies he oversees of being in the hands of pharmaceutical giants and has launched a major overhaul of his department aimed at combating "bureaucratic proliferation" and restoring public confidence in the authorities.

By The New Obs with AFP

Le Nouvel Observateur

"All corrupt" Trump's health minister on a crusade against major scientific journals

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