YouTube has removed a video of psychologist Dr Jordan Peterson interviewing democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr, saying that the video breached its “general vaccine misinformation policy”.
The 95-minute video interview, posted to Peterson’s channel on 5th June, featured the podcast host and Kennedy discussing a range of topics, from Covid-19 vaccines to the environment, to the current state of the Democratic party.
In the interview, Peterson and Kennedy spoke about alleged “collusion” between the Democratic Party and the pharmaceutical industry.
Peterson referred to Kennedy’s last book, ‘A Letter to Liberals,’ asking him to explain the relationship, quizzing the presidential hopeful on what he felt was behind the “liberal attitude to big pharma” among Democrats during the Covid crisis.
“I watched that happen,” Kennedy said, “Kind of like a slow-motion train wreck”.
He spoke about criminal damages and penalties which have been imposed on pharmaceutical companies over the last ten years, accusing the four pharmaceutical companies which produce vaccines in America, including Pfizer, of “corrupt collusion” with regulatory agencies.
“[They’ve] paid $35 billion dollars, collectively, over the last decade, in criminal penalties and damages,” he said, continuing, “For lying to doctors, for defrauding regulators, for falsifying science, and for killing hundreds of thousands of people”.
“The whole opioid crisis,” he claimed, “Was engineered by the other big pharmaceutical companies, along with corrupt FDA officials”.
“That is a crisis that, this year, killed 106,000 American kids,” he said.
He accused pharmaceutical companies of having a track record of “depriving the public of informed consent”.
Pharmaceutical drugs are “now the third largest killer of Americans after cancer and heart attacks,” he also claimed.
He likened the introduction of Obama Care by former President Barack Obama to “a handshake with the devil”.
He also said vaccines have become a “culture war” issue after former US President Donald Trump started speaking out anecdotally about alleged side effects of MRA vaccines.
Kennedy has repeatedly come under fire for claims that both Anthony Fauci and the Bill Gates Foundation were trying to profit from the vaccine. Following an August 2020 interview with Alec Baldwin on Instagram, during which Kennedy made various claims about Covid, Baldwin faced criticism from public health officials and scientists for allowing the claims to go unchallenged.
In February 2021, his Instagram account was blocked, with the platform saying he had “repeatedly” shared “debunked claims about the coronavirus or vaccines”. Last year, Children’s Health Defense, a group founded by Kennedy, was also suspended on Facebook and Instagram.
Some have taken fresh aim at Kennedy, an environmental lawyer, offering an explanation for “a lot of the sexual dysphoria that we’re seeing” among children, which he claimed is linked to “toxic chemicals” and “endocrine disruptors”.
During the interview, Kennedy, 69, told the clinical psychologist that the chemical atrazine was causing feminisation in frogs, as he questioned what the chemical, found in drinking water in the US, could be doing to humans.
He said: “I think a lot of the problems we see in kids, particularly boys, it’s probably underappreciated on how much that’s coming from chemical exposures, including a lot of the sexual dysmorphia we’re seeing.
“I mean, they’re swimming through a soup of toxic chemicals today, and many of those are endocrine disruptors.
“There is Atrazine throughout our water supply,” he told Peterson. “And if you, in a lab, put atrazine in a tank full of frogs, it will feminise every frog in there,” he said.
“And 10 per cent of the male frogs will turn into fully viable females able to produce eggs. If it’s doing that to frogs, there’s a lot of other evidence that it’s doing that to human beings as well,” he claimed.
Kennedy, who is the nephew of assassinated former US President John F. Kennedy, also said that if elected President of the US, he would “stop the killing” – as he slammed the Biden administration for alleged corruption.
Kennedy said that as a “life-long” Democrat, he was concerned that his party was being “taken away” from him and others – citing a “departure from common sense” through an embrace of “radical ideologies”.
He said despite challenges, he still believed the Democratic party was “salvageable” and there was still time to build an America which had “moral authority around the world”.
“I think the Democratic party has been hijacked by some extreme ideologies, and in some cases, some irrational thought patterns. The idea of returning it to common sense is appealing to a lot of people,” he said.
He also spoke about the war in Ukraine, defending Russia, claiming:
“Russians wanted to do peace talks from the beginning, and we’ve rebuffed them,” he said. “I will settle this on day one […] I’ll stop the killing, and I’ll […] I mean, the settlement is obvious, right?
“The Russians have wanted to settle this from the beginning, and they’ve been very clear about what they want,” he said.
“They want NATO to make a pledge not to come into the Ukraine, which we should have done” he continued. “We shouldn’t have put NATO into fourteen countries,” he told Peterson.
Kennedy also referenced his “censorship” on social media:
“Since 2005, I’ve been actively censored [by the corporate media],” Kennedy said, saying he now experiences “complete wall-to-wall censorship” by the legacy media.
He said that once Elon Musk took over Twitter, the platform “unshackled” him, giving him room to grow his platform.
He explained he is still banned on Instagram and Facebook, telling Peterson, “I’m interested to see what happens to you on YouTube” prior to the deletion of the video.
‘GENERAL VACCINE MISINFORMATION’
In a statement posted on Monday, YouTube said that it had removed the video, providing an explanation which stated:
“We removed a video from the Jordan Peterson channel for violating YouTube’s general vaccine misinformation policy, which prohibits content that alleges that vaccines cause chronic side effects, outside of rare side effects that are recognised by health authorities”.
The platform’s own vaccine misinformation policy tells content creators: “Don’t post content on YouTube if it includes harmful misinformation about currently approved or administered vaccines.”
Kennedy’s campaign team responded by saying that he would be happy to debate the issue of vaccines with “any prominent proponent of the conventional view”. His campaign also said insisted the presidential hopeful believes in proper safety testing of vaccines, stating:
“Vaccines are not a major priority for Mr. Kennedy in this campaign. He will be happy to debate the issue with any prominent proponent of the conventional view.
“Mr. Kennedy does not believe the attacks are coordinated. People are simply speaking out according to what they believe. These beliefs are the result of the long influence of corporate money in medicine, research, media, and government.
“Even so,” they continued, “There are troubling indications in published research of serious safety issues with vaccines in general, but especially the Covid shots. The real issue for Mr. Kennedy is regulatory capture and corporate influence over government. He is in favour of properly conducted, unbiased, transparent safety testing of all vaccines”.
Both Kennedy and Peterson slammed the removal of the video on Twitter.
“Should social media platforms censor presidential candidates?” Kennedy asked, while Peterson said YouTube “has taken upon itself to actively interfere with a presidential election campaign”.
What do you think … Should social media platforms censor presidential candidates? My conversation with @JordanBPeterson was deleted by @YouTube. Luckily you can watch it here on @Twitter (thank you @elonmusk). #Kennedy24https://t.co/PJFKWH6zmd
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) June 18, 2023
Now @YouTube has taken upon itself to actively interfere with a presidential election campaign @RobertKennedyJr https://t.co/XmgOYTl3NN
— Dr Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) June 18, 2023