Kennedy's Citations

 

Kennedy's Citations

I began my critique of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s book on Dr. Fauci with an entry titled "Big Conspiracy." There are those who will wrap their arms over your shoulder and pretend to be your friend, all the while pointing to someone else, saying that "they are the real enemy." As you walk along, they will be robbing you. Usually they will pick an enemy that does have real faults. In Kennedy's case, he targets, at times, Big Pharm. 

These people scratch the itch of paranoia, blur the lines of reality, and make money from selling you their books and making speaking engagements. Sometimes they believe what they sell or at least convince themselves of their con. Robert Preston, as Dr. Harold Hill (no relation), said, of believing his phony scheme, "There's always a band."

I cannot count Kennedy among the true believers. His arguments are so dishonest, so insincere and calculating, that I believe he must know he is lying. He will take a reference and claim it says the opposite that it does. He cloaks himself in famous names and quotes marginal sources as authorities.

This is clear in the citations that Kennedy has at the end of chapters. For a book purported to be about science, relatively few citations are from scientific studies. Instead, he quotes conspiracy books and conspiracy news articles. He cites YouTube videos that sell conspiracies. I'm surprised he doesn't cite his own book on Fauci as a source. (He does cite his website as a source of his information.)

For Chapter Six of his book, I decided to tally his citations, 180 in total. 

As his most common source, he cites anti-HIV books 39 times. These books have accusational titles and lengthy subtitles such as Peter Duesberg and the Duesbergians: How a Brave and Brilliant Group of Scientists Challenged the AIDS Establishment and Inadvertently Exposed the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Epidemic. The book, Virus Mania: How the Medical Industry Continually Invents Epidemics Making Billions at our Expense had 24 citations by itself.

The full list of books is at the bottom of this page. 

He cites newspaper articles 36 times. This includes 25 of what I would term mainstream media, and others that are niche publications. On top of this, he cites pop magazines, such as Spin, 6 times, and a mainstream magazine, once. One pair of newspaper articles by Elinor Burkitt is cited 18 times.

Actual articles in scientific journals are cited 29 times, or 16.1% of the time. 

YouTube videos are cited 24 times. Blogs are cited 12 times.

The remaining groups of citations are less than five times each (drug insert, website, etc.)

This is not how a reasoned argument is bolstered. This is a person citing books every bit as incompetent as his own as proof of what he is saying. Kennedy never tries to present the other side of the argument, that HIV does cause AIDS, or look at its possible merits. He never cites a book that says such, or a newspaper article. He does cite Duesberg often, in support of Duesberg.

Full List of Books Cited in Chapter Six:

Peter Duesberg and the Duesbergians: How a Brave and Brilliant Group of Scientists Challenged the AIDS Establishment and Inadvertently Exposed the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Epidemic

Virus Mania: How the Medical Industry Continually Invents Epidemics Making Billions at our Expense

Impure Science: AIDS, Activism, and the Politics of Knowledge, Rethinking AIDS: the Tragic Cost of Premature Consensus, Inventing the AIDS Virus

The AIDS War: Propaganda, Profiteering, and the Genocide from the Medical-Industrial Complex

Death Rush: Poppers and AIDS

AIDS: The Burden of History

The Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Epidemic Cover-Up: How a Little Newspaper Solved the Scientific and Political Mystery of Our Time

Dancing Naked in the Mind Field (no subtitle!)

Science Sold Out: Does HIV Really Cause AIDS?

A book on conspiracy theories and the damage they cause:

Conspiracies do exist. Probably at a rate of one per thousand conspiracy theories.

Martin Hill Ortiz is a professor of pharmacology and author of several novels. 

My new novel, The Missing Floor, is now available from Oliver-Heber books. The first in the series, Floor 24, is newly available in audio book format. The audiobook has quite a complimentary review here.

The Missing Floor