TFTC #696: How Peer Review Became a Weapon
Guests: Jessica Rose & Kevin McKernan | Host: Marty Bent
Date: December 20, 2025

Episode Overview

In this explosive conversation, Marty Bent welcomes back researchers Jessica Rose and Kevin McKernan to dissect how the scientific peer review process has been weaponized to suppress, discredit, and stall inconvenient scientific findings—particularly those challenging mainstream narratives around COVID-19 vaccines. Drawing on their own experiences, including recent Congressional hearings spotlighting their work, Rose and McKernan detail the networked machinery (including PubPeer, Retraction Watch, and pharma-linked foundations) they say has hijacked science's critical gatekeeping function for political and commercial ends. The discussion explores how Bitcoin-inspired technology could decentralize and restore transparency to scientific publishing, and it dives into the roadblocks, attacks, and censorship campaigns they’ve faced since publishing contentious vaccine safety data.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Personal Fallout from Vaccine Contamination Research

• Marty opens by asking Jessica and Kevin what the last four months have been like since their paper (on SV40 promoter and DNA contamination in mRNA vaccines) was presented at a Congressional hearing. Both recount escalating professional and personal attacks:
  • Constant responses to trolls and hostile emails (01:34, Jessica Rose)
  • Threats and actual police investigations (03:08, Kevin McKernan)
  • Attempts to obstruct their ability to publish additional papers
  • The paper remains "under investigation," with slow-moving, opaque journal proceedings targeting their reputation and careers (07:56, Jessica Rose)

"We're literally just doing what we've always done, which is scientific research and writing ... now, because what we've uncovered is so...radioactive, there's been an attack launched against us." – Jessica Rose (01:34)

2. Peer Review as a Tool of Suppression

• Detailed explanation of how peer review can be used maliciously:
  • Targeted desk rejections (papers rejected without even review—up to five times for their work)
  • Outraged reviewers making ad hominem attacks and breaching ethical guidelines (08:13)
  • Coordinated campaigns by known actors (naming Retraction Watch, PubPeer, and funders like the Arnold Foundation) to spur journal investigations and potential retractions
  • Use of AI-generated complaints to create confusion and bureaucracy (03:08, Kevin McKernan)

"This is kind of what I would call 'steer review.' There is a system in place for people to systematically suppress certain science and elevate other science, dressed up in this bow of being pure academics that are after science integrity." – Kevin McKernan (13:42)

3. Behind the Curtain: The 'Science Integrity' Complex

• They describe a small, tightly-knit, and well-funded network driving these processes:
  • Sites like PubPeer masquerade as grassroots post-publication checking but actually serve as gatekeeping fronts (15:29, Jessica Rose)
  • Retraction Watch acts not just as a journalistic watchdog but actively facilitates retractions, sometimes based on bogus or AI-generated complaints (16:25)
  • Patterns show these networks defend politically favorable science (e.g., masking, lockdowns, "Proximal Origins" paper) and attack findings that question pharmaceutical narratives (e.g., ivermectin, vaccine contamination, unwanted side effects like myocarditis and cancer) (11:54, Kevin McKernan)

4. Scientific Careers and Lives Upended

• Marty highlights professional consequences for doctors/researchers who go against the grain—loss of positions for outspoken critics, including Dr. McCullough and Dr. Pierre Kory (21:27)
• The peer review/retraction complex does not just target papers but actively tries to destroy careers (19:24, Kevin McKernan)

5. Alternative Models: Bitcoin, Nostr, and Decentralized Science

• The guests advocate for leveraging censorship-resistant technologies:
  • Publishing data and responses directly on decentralized protocols like Nostr and timestamping into Bitcoin for immutability (27:32)
  • Crowd-funding and bounty-driven peer review ("peer-to-peer review"), bypassing centralized journals
  • Calls for new software tools/interfaces making this process accessible to researchers (84:54, Kevin McKernan)

"This should just be on Nostr or something, right? Let these things play out… We really have to build a new system here." – Kevin McKernan (07:56)

6. Breaking Scientific Truth: Manipulating Data & Narratives

• Discussion of how mixing and matching vaccine brands ("blender" approach) intentionally muddied adverse event data (40:14, Jessica Rose & Kevin McKernan)
• Financial incentives tailored during the pandemic (high payments for COVID diagnoses, ventilator use) drove dangerous clinical practices and distorted datasets (57:43)

7. Systemic Risks & the Need for Transparency

• Rose points out how rising rates of myocarditis, aggressive cancers ("turbo cancer"), and kidney failures post-vaccine are nearly impossible to trace epidemiologically because of compromised datasets
• Their calls for ‘black box’ warnings on vaccines are resisted for economic and political reasons—fear of liability so vast that authorities would rather suppress evidence than face ruinous compensation claims (64:56, Kevin McKernan & Marty Bent)

"It's a promotional thing. It's an ad to get people to take these shots, regardless of the fact they've already established lifelong immunity." – Jessica Rose (53:26)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "There's been this very weird pharma-funded attack that's getting laundered through all these other … nonprofit entities that hang their hat on 'science integrity.'" — Kevin McKernan (06:54)
• "It's insidious because … there's no frickin way we're ever gonna be able to trace this back. … How the hell would we ever trace it back to the shots unless we had like 30 years of data?" — Jessica Rose (39:13)
• "They made sure that they mixed and matched the shots and now they can blame…" — Kevin McKernan (40:14)
• "That's right. The desk rejections are private. … You only pay the journal once they accept it—so if you're pharma, you'd much rather let a few things come out, hammer them after they come out with our secondary network of smears. That way we take down their reputation, we take their money, and we end up taking their copyright." — Kevin McKernan (69:53)

Key Timestamps

• 00:07 – Kevin on economic context for Bitcoin and fiat instability
• 01:34 – Jessica on personal impact of Congressional hearing fallout
• 03:08 – Kevin on escalation: police, threats, trying to slow them down
• 07:56 – Paper desk-rejected multiple times, then under investigation
• 11:54 – Both explain overt ethical violations by peer reviewers and network targeting
• 13:42 – Kevin describes “steer review” as a system for narrative control
• 15:29 – Jessica describes PubPeer as a front
• 21:27 – Marty recounts career ruination of dissenting physicians
• 27:32 – Transition to alternative publishing (Nostr, Bitcoin)
• 39:13 – Jessica on data obfuscation, “turbo cancer,” and challenges of tracing outcomes
• 51:29 – Kevin: “they do this game” of blaming the virus vs. vaccine; lack of clean control data
• 57:43 – Kevin & Jessica on financial incentives for hospitals during pandemic
• 64:56 – The systemic liability covering up for vaccine injury could “take down the whole system”
• 84:54 – Kevin on the vision for D-science and decentralized peer/bounty review
• 88:59 – Tech logistics: spinning up nodes, demo plans, and onboarding for researchers

Concluding Takeaways

• The peer review system, framed as a protective mechanism for scientific truth, has become a weapon wielded by a small, coordinated, and well-funded group to suppress inconvenient science and punish dissenters.
• Attacks are personal, professional, and bureaucratic—combining smear campaigns, opaque investigations, career-destroying institutional pressure, and manipulation of journal processes.
• Jessica and Kevin argue that a radical overhaul is overdue: open, transparent, and decentralized review processes using censorship-resistant protocols—mirroring the ethos of Bitcoin—may be the only path to restoring trust and substance to scientific discourse.
• The broader public remains mostly unaware of this behind-the-scenes battle, even as the integrity of scientific inquiry and public health decision-making are at stake.

“It’s all part of the same… It’s all part of money and control. It’s not about scientific progress.” — Jessica Rose (89:35)

Humanism, decentralization, and persistent truth-telling are the episode’s final calls—for both the scientific community and society at large.

Note: Cat appearances and casual banter have been omitted, as have sustained ad reads and related content per instruction.