# Federal Judge Rebukes RFK Jr.'s Health Agency for Using AI-Generated Studies To Slash Teen Pregnancy Grants > Source: > Published: 2026-09-02 12:49:59+00:00 # Federal Judge Rebukes RFK Jr.'s Health Agency for Using AI-Generated Studies To Slash Teen Pregnancy Grants ## A court has paused the Trump administration's abstinence-only teen pregnancy programme as the ruling does not restore the £49.1m in cancelled grants A federal judge has halted the Trump administration's overhaul of a national teen pregnancy prevention programme after finding that [Robert F. Kennedy Jr.](https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/robert-kennedy-jr-school-nutrition-controversy-1816171)'s health department relied on public health studies that appear not to exist. US District Judge Christopher Cooper granted a preliminary injunction on Wednesday, 19 August 2026, in Hennepin County, Minnesota, in Minnesota v. US Department of Health and Human Services, pausing HHS's push to require grant recipients to use abstinence-only curricula. Cooper wrote that the agency's supporting citations bore what he called 'a hallmark of AI-generated citations', language that echoes an earlier controversy over fabricated references in the administration's 'Make America Healthy Again' report last year. The ruling does not restore the roughly £49.1m ($67m) in grants HHS had already cancelled, which Cooper said he was uncertain he had the authority to reinstate. ## A Programme With Fifteen Years of Bipartisan Support The Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program was authorised by Congress in 2009 with support from both parties, and teen pregnancy rates have fallen significantly in the years since, according to data from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. HHS issued new funding criteria this year requiring grantees to adopt abstinence-only and so-called 'body literacy' curricula, then [cancelled the vast majority of active grants](https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/trump-administration-teen-pregnancy-prevention-overhaul-1810230) just 72 hours later, according to court filings. The lawsuit was brought by Hennepin County in Minnesota, King County in Washington state, Planned Parenthood of the Heartland and the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States. Democracy Forward and the Public Citizen Litigation Group represented the county and SIECUS plaintiffs, while Planned Parenthood Federation of America represented its Heartland affiliate. The plaintiffs argued that Congress never authorised the new funding conditions and that HHS had failed to follow the notice-and-comment procedures ordinarily required before imposing sweeping changes on federal grant programmes. ## The Judge's Doubts About 'Body Literacy' and Its Sourcing Cooper was sharply critical of the concept underpinning HHS's new approach, describing 'body literacy' in his opinion as 'a nebulous concept that appears to elevate fertility and marital procreation over well-tested forms of contraception and pregnancy prevention'. He found the administration's shift to an abstinence-only mandate was likely 'arbitrary and capricious', the legal standard courts use to strike down agency actions taken without adequate justification. The judge wrote that HHS 'has offered no explanation or evidence to support its across-the-board mandate that only abstinence strategies be pursued', adding that the notices supporting the policy 'remarkably' cited public health studies that appeared either not to exist or not to support the claims attributed to them. He concluded that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on their claim that the policy was unlawful, and that the harm to their programming justified pausing the changes while the case continues. ## Not the First Time AI Citations Have Surfaced at HHS This is not the first time citations tied to the Trump administration's health agency have come under scrutiny. The department's 'Make America Healthy Again' report, released last year under Kennedy's leadership, was found to contain references to studies that did not exist alongside multiple citation errors, prompting questions at the time about whether the document had been drafted using AI tools without adequate fact-checking. HHS has not issued a public response to Cooper's ruling. The department has not said whether it plans to appeal the injunction or revise the evidentiary basis for its abstinence-only funding criteria. The MAHA report controversy last year prompted the White House to quietly revise the document and remove the disputed citations, though it never fully explained how the fabricated references made their way into an official federal report in the first place. Critics of the administration have pointed to both episodes as evidence of a broader pattern in which politically driven health policy is being dressed up with citations that do not withstand scrutiny. ## A Partial Win That Leaves Millions in Cancelled Grants Unresolved Cooper's order blocks HHS from continuing to enforce the abstinence-only mandate against remaining grant recipients, but it stops short of reinstating the roughly £49.1m ($67m) in funding already stripped from programmes nationwide, a figure confirmed in reporting on the ruling. The judge said it was unclear whether he had the legal authority to order those grants restored, leaving that question, along with the case's next steps, for further proceedings. Cooper directed both sides to submit a proposed schedule by 1 September 2026. For teenagers in the counties and clinics that brought the case, the ruling buys time, but it does not undo the tens of millions of dollars in cuts already made in the name of a policy the judge said the government still has not adequately explained. © Copyright IBTimes 2026. All rights reserved.