Research AI Minute Newsroom 2026-08-12

A firm selling ‘100% human-written, never AI’ medical research turned out to be AI all the way down

Research Gold sells systematic reviews, meta-analyses and ready-to-submit manuscripts to medical researchers, charging $1,900 for a full systematic review, and advertises that its work is ‘100% human-written, never AI’. 404 Media checked the eight PhD methodologists listed on the site and found that none of them exist: the portrait photographs are AI-generated and none of the names have any publication record, including the founder billed as Dr. Elena Vasquez. A second group of names on the site belonged to real scientists who had never heard of the company. When a reporter telephoned, an agent called Sarah insisted ‘I'm a real person’ and carried on selling. The emails, and the statement the company eventually sent, also read as machine-written.

Why it mattersThis is the loop closing on itself. A company uses AI to invent the humans whose entire job is to certify that no AI was involved, and sells the output into the medical literature — the reviews that shape treatment guidance. Jenny Berrio, an evidence synthesis scientist whose name and photo were used without her permission, says she is preparing a takedown request; the page listing real people came down after 404 Media made contact. The practical lesson for anyone reading a systematic review is that a row of credentialled faces on a website is now close to worthless as evidence that people did the work.

#Health AI #Science & Research

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A firm selling ‘100% human-written, never AI’ medical research turned out to be AI all the way down

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