US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he may bar government scientists from publishing in top medical journals, accusing publications like
The New England Journal of Medicine of being “corrupt” and beholden to pharmaceutical companies.
“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,” Kennedy said on “
The Ultimate Human” podcast with wellness influencer and biohacker
Gary Brecka.
Scientists from the
National Institutes of Health will be blocked from reporting their research in certain publications “unless these journals change dramatically,” Kennedy said, adding that his department would instead create its own journals for each of its institutes that could “become the preeminent journals.”
Kennedy has already directed restrictions on researchers’ use of terms related to diversity, equity and inclusion. HHS has an in-house journal,
Public Health Reports, that’s been published continuously since 1878 and is the official journal of the US Surgeon General and Public Health Service. Other agency publications include the
Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report and
Emerging Infectious Diseases.
He has in recent days drawn criticism from the medical community over other claims, including his assertion that Covid vaccines
have been removed from the US list of recommended immunizations for healthy children and pregnant women.