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Board of Directors

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Chairman of the Board

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is founder, chairman and chief litigation counsel for Children’s Health Defense. He is the founder of Waterkeeper Alliance — the world’s largest clean water advocacy group — and served as its longtime chairman and attorney.

[Note: As of 4/2/23, Mr. Kennedy is currently on leave as CHD’s chairman.]

Kennedy’s reputation as a resolute defender of the environment and children’s health stems from a litany of hundreds of successful legal actions. Most recently, Kennedy received recognition for his role on the trial team in the landmark victories against Monsanto in 2018, and against DuPont in 2019 in the contamination case that inspired the movie “Dark Waters” (2019).

Among Kennedy’s published books is the New York Times bestseller “Crimes Against Nature” (2005). His book, “The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health” (2021) sold more than 1 million copies and was on the New York Times Best Sellers List for 17 weeks.

Kennedy is a graduate of Harvard University. He studied at the London School of Economics and received his law degree from the University of Virginia Law School. Following graduation, he attended Pace University School of Law, which awarded him a master’s degree in environmental law. He served on the Pace Law School faculty from 1986 to 2018 and cofounded and supervised Pace’s Environmental Litigation Clinic.


Mary Holland, J.D.

President

As president of Children’s Health Defense, Mary Holland has been involved in the vaccine choice and health freedom movement for more than two decades. “Once I learned about the extreme liability protection that industry and healthcare providers enjoy and the suppression of accurate science and information about vaccine risk and injury, I understood the need for immediate, radical systemic change. I’ve been devoted to that change ever since.”

Like CHD, Holland seeks to end the epidemic of chronic childhood diseases, hold those responsible accountable and create safeguards so that these epidemics never happen again. Through its education, advocacy, litigation and research, CHD challenges federal and state governments, pharmaceutical companies, corporations and corrupt regulatory agencies to end the practices that are harming children’s health. In the age of COVID-19, CHD’s mission to protect health, and especially infant’s and children’s health, has never been more important.

Before joining CHD’s staff in fall 2019, Holland directed the Graduate Lawyering Program at the NYU School of Law for 15 years and lectured at the Columbia Law School on international human rights advocacy. She frequently testified in state legislatures around the country to retain or expand religious, medical and philosophical exemptions to vaccine mandates. Holland has co-authored two books on vaccines, “Vaccine Epidemic” and “The HPV Vaccine on Trial: Seeking Justice for a Generation Betrayed” and many articles about vaccine law and policy.


Brian Hooker

Director

Brian S. Hooker, Ph.D., PE, is an associate professor of biology at Simpson University in Redding California where he specializes in microbiology and biotechnology. He also teaches chemistry at Shasta College.

Brian dedicated over 15 years as a bioengineer and the team leader for the High Throughput Biology Team and Operations Manager of the DOE Genomics: Genomes to Life (GTL) Center for Molecular and Cellular Systems at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). Dr. Hooker also managed applied plant and fungal molecular biology research projects at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, where systems biology researchers are focused on understanding gene and protein networks involved in individual cell signaling, communication between cells in communities, and cellular metabolic pathways. Hooker also served as research director for the plant biotechnology company, PhytaGenics.

In 1985, Hooker earned his bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering, from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, California. He earned his master’s of science degree in 1988 and his doctorate in 1990, both in biochemical engineering, from Washington State University, in Pullman, Washington.

Brian Hooker has many accomplishments to his credit including: co-inventor for five patents, recipient of the Battelle Entrepreneurial Award in 2001 and a Federal Laboratory Consortium Recognition Award in 1999, for his work on “Reactive Transport in 3-Dimensions.” The breadth of Hooker’s over 60 science and engineering papers have been published in internationally recognized, peer-reviewed journals.

Hooker has been active in the autism community since 2001 and has an adult son with autism. He currently serves on the board of trustees for Focus for Health. In 2013 and 2014, Dr. Hooker worked with the CDC Whistleblower, Dr. William Thompson, to expose fraud and corruption within vaccine safety research in the CDC which led to the release of over 10,000 pages of documents.


Deirdre Imus

Director

In 2000, Deirdre Imus, founded The Deirdre Imus Environmental Health Center® at Hackensack University Medical Center. We represent one of the first hospital based programs whose specific mission is to identify, control & ultimately prevent toxic exposures in the environment that threaten our children’s health.

Under Deirdre’s leadership, the Center has undertaken important research on environmental chemicals in newborn cord blood, the efficacy and safety of nontoxic treatment of head lice in children, the effects of hormone disrupting chemicals on children’s health and the Center with Rutger’s University doing the first study to explore in utero exposure to BPA substitutes and the first U.S. study to test for BPA in maternal/fetal pairs.

In her quest to clean up the environment for our kids, Deirdre developed the award-winning Greening The Cleaning® program and product line that replaces the hazardous ingredients commonly found in cleaning agents with environmentally-responsible, less toxic products wherever possible. The program and products are used throughout the country in schools, healthcare facilities, and businesses. We also help build one of the first green hospital buildings of its scale and size in the country. A great example is the ingenuous recycled cotton denim used as insulation.

Deirdre is also the founder of imusenvironmentalhealth.org a resource for healthy living. For 20 years Deirdre Co-Founded/Co-Directed with her late husband Don Imus the Imus Ranch for Kids with Cancer, a working cattle ranch for kids with cancer. imus.com She has multiple books on the New York Times bestseller list. Her books include “Green This Series: Greening Your Cleaning, Growing Up Green and The Essential Green You, The Imus Ranch: Cooking for Kids and Cowboys.

Deirdre has been the recipient of numerous awards and honors for her impact as a leader in the field of environmental health and for raising awareness about childhood chronic illnesses as an environmentalist and children’s health advocate:

Mother of Year Award 1999
Ruby Slipper Award Skip of New York 2003
Rachel Carson Award from the National Audubon Society in 2007
Pace University Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters 2007
Person of the Year by Spectrum Magazine, 2007
Woman of the Year Award by the USO in 2008
Held the first Vaccine Forum in a hospital setting for physicians, health
care ofcials, legislators and parents to hear all sides of this controversial
issue impacting our children 2008
Glamour Magazine’s Eco Heroes in 2009
National Autism Association’s BELIEVE Award 2010
Canary Award, for her eforts toward creating a healthy and sustainable future for our children 2013
Champion for Autism Award by The Autism Education Foundation of MUJC in New Jersey 2013
Since 2014 HackensackUMC and The Center have been named Top 25 green hospitals in the country by Practice GreenHealth highest honor, Top 25 Environmental Excellence Award
In 2017, HUMC named one of the greenest hospitals in America by Becker’s Hospital Review
Deirdre is a full time artist: deirdreimus.com – @deirdreimus 2023