I did a Web chat yesterday on conspiracy theories. Topics included the September 11 attacks, the Kennedy assassination, the moon landing, the origin of AIDS, why Osama bin Laden is not wanted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for the September 11 attacks, the Illuminati, and other subjects. Check it out.

My name is Todd Leventhal. I’ve worked researching false stories about the United States for the State Department for 15 of the past 21 years.

In 1987, when I started, the big disinformation story was the false Soviet claim that the United States had invented the AIDS virus. No scientists believed this and, in 1999, scientists determined that the virus had come from a West African chimpanzee, Pan troglodytes troglodytes.

The “baby parts” rumor also started in 1987. The false story that Americans or others were adopting or kidnapping Latin American children for use in organ transplants tore through the world press for 10 years. Variants of it won the most prestigious journalism prize in France in 1995 and in Spain in 1996 – both based on untrue stories.

In the 1990’s, I researched false claims that depleted uranium munitions used during the 1991 Gulf War had caused cancer and birth defects in Iraq. We all have powerful fears about the highly enriched uranium used in weapons and nuclear power plants, but depleted uranium is very different; it’s only very weakly radioactive. It’s been “depleted” of its radioactivity. But anything with the last name “uranium” scares people, and emotional associations often trump logic when dealing with things we don’t know much about.

Finally, after the September 11 attacks, I’ve spent a lot of time debunking 9/11 conspiracy theories.

See some examples of my work under “Related Sites” on the right.