Blake Fleetwood, a writer who has referred to Mr. Kennedy as a “mastermind” and has been his friend and fellow skier since 1971, said he could not understand why Mr. Kennedy “risks his whole life” to become an activist, ” embarking on this crusade. ”
“Why is he ruining his life’s work?” he asked.
Mr. Kennedy, 68, began criticizing vaccines long before the coronavirus, claiming they cause autism, a view that has been vehemently dismissed by medical experts. But the tone of his attack has intensified with the advent of the Covid vaccine and has forced a fresh look not only at Mr. Kennedy’s position on vaccines, but also at other unorthodox causes he has pursued over the years.
Mr. Kennedy now says that Sirhan B. Sirhan did not kill Mr. Kennedy’s father and called on California parole officers to release him. He echoed the popular conspiracy theory that high-speed 5G pylons are being installed across the country “to collect our data and control our behavior.”
In a new bestseller, he claimed that Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, who is President Biden’s chief medical adviser on the coronavirus pandemic, and Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, were in cahoots with the pharmaceutical industry to cash in. from dangerous vaccines.
He has a large following on social media, where he spreads often false information about the coronavirus and vaccines. Last year he was banned on instagram, where he had 800,000 followers, for spreading misinformation in his attacks on the vaccine. His Facebook page with over 300,000 followers remains online, as does his Twitter account with over 405,000 followers.
Mr. Kennedy declined an interview request, saying he was busy with a vaccine damage lawsuit in Jackson, Tennessee. book about Dr. Fauci, despite its brisk sales. But he answered some questions by email, saying he was involved when the mother of a child with autism brought stacks of studies purporting to show a link between vaccines and the disease to his home on Cape Cod, and stayed there until he did not review them. .