RFK Jr threatens ban on federal scientists publishing in top journals

Robert F Kennedy Jr has threatened to ban government scientists from publishing in the world’s leading medical journals, which he branded “corrupt”, and to instead create alternative publications run by the state.

“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,” the US health secretary said on the Ultimate Human podcast. He accused the publications of being controlled by pharmaceutical companies.

Instead, Kennedy outlined plans to launch government-run journals that would become “the preeminent journals” because National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding would anoint researchers “as a good, legitimate scientist”.

The three publications Kennedy targeted are among the most influential medical journals globally, established in the 19th century and now central to disseminating peer-reviewed medical research worldwide. The Lancet and Jama each report more than 30m annual website visits, while the New England Journal of Medicine claims more than 1 million weekly readers.

Kennedy has similarly accused the agencies he now oversees – including the NIH, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services – as “sock puppets” for the pharmaceutical industry.

The second Trump administration has taken an axe to scientific research, with NIH funding cut by more than $3bn since the year before. Kennedy has also purged an estimated 20,000 health department staff from the government.

Adam Gaffney, a public health researcher at Harvard Medical School, told the Washington Post: “Banning NIH-funded researchers from publishing in leading medical journals and requiring them to publish only in journals that carry the RFK Jr seal of approval would delegitimize taxpayer-funded research.”

The health secretary’s comments followed the release of a White House report last week that challenged medical consensus on vaccines and suggested pharmaceutical influence has prevented proper study of chronic disease causes in children.

Kennedy justified his position by citing decade-old concerns from journal editors themselves about pharmaceutical influence, including former New England Journal of Medicine chief Marcia Angell’s 2009 warning that “it is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published” due to financial ties with pharmaceutical companies.

The funding cuts and personnel changes have prompted some US scientists to consider relocating abroad, with countries including France, Germany, Spain and China actively recruiting American researchers.