Community Health Grants Spared For Now After Judge Finds HHS Used Fake Sources

WEDNESDAY, Sept. 2, 2026 (HealthDay News) — A judge has blocked sweeping changes to federal teen pregnancy prevention grants, ruling that health officials backed the new requirements with scientific studies that appear not to exist.

The money at stake pays for programs run in multiple states. 

Plaintiffs in the case include two county governments along with health care and education groups that run prevention programs, according to The Washington Post. 

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) had already cut tens of millions of dollars in those grants before the coalition sued in July.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper granted a preliminary injunction while the case moves ahead, calling the changes "likely arbitrary and capricious." The government failed to offer enough evidence to support its policy, he wrote.

A preliminary injunction is a temporary order that pauses a policy while a lawsuit plays out. It does not decide who ultimately wins.

Cooper traced the evidence problem to what he called signs of artificial intelligence (AI) use. 

The grant solicitations "(remarkably) reference public health studies that appear either not to exist or not to support the propositions for which they are cited — a hallmark of AI-generated citations," he said.

AI chatbots can produce references that look convincing, such as plausible titles, authors or journals, while matching no published paper at all.

Seven articles were cited in the grant documents. Two appeared to be entirely invented, according to Cooper, and three others could not be found in the journals credited to them.

The administration had said money Congress set aside for the programs should not encourage teen sexual activity and should fund only approaches promoting abstinence and "body literacy," according to The Post. 

The plaintiffs are also challenging a prohibition on what the new rules call "gender ideology."

This is not the first time federal health policy has leaned on citations that could not be verified. 

Last year, The Post found that the White House "MAHA Report," a broad assessment of children's health led by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., was built in part on references that appeared to be AI-generated.

A review of the initial version counted 522 scientific footnotes. At least 21 of those links led to dead pages, according to The Post. Several studies cited in the report did not exist.

HHS did not answer a request for comment from The Post.

More information

Visit the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for more information about federal teen pregnancy prevention programs.

SOURCES: The Washington Post, Sept. 1, 2026; The Washington Post, May 29, 2025