History of CHD
From Defending Our Children To Defending Yours: The History of Children’s Health Defense
“We’re lucky. We are the happy few, the band of brothers and sisters. We know what our job is in this life — we know that we’re part of this battle, that we have to fight, and that we have to die with our boots on if necessary.” –Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
It started with listening to mothers — and reluctance.
While Children’s Health Defense (CHD) is comprised of some of the most accomplished experts, activists, and scientific and legal minds in the country, the sum of their collective experience and expertise is not its most potent asset. CHD Founder and Chairman on leave Robert F. Kennedy Jr., learned well over a decade ago that the movement behind CHD’s mission to end childhood health epidemics is primarily fueled by parents’ love for their children and the innate drive to keep all children out of harm’s way.
And, as Big Pharma and corrupt federal health agencies and officials are discovering, that makes CHD a powerful force to be reckoned with.
Many of the people working for CHD have been actively involved in the health freedom movement for years — some for decades. CHD’s success to date is the product of these activists’ consistently proactive response to adversity and a testament to parental determination. CHD’s staff are well-versed in science and know the struggles that families face when children experience regressive autism, life-altering neurological disorders, or tragically lose their lives following vaccination. They have testified before Congress, written books and created grassroots organizations to help other families in similar situations. But their impressive resumes are the result of years as foot soldiers in the battle to protect future generations from harm.
Red-Pilled by the “Mercury Moms”
Kennedy readily admits that he “was dragged kicking and screaming into this brawl.” Like so many who find themselves confronted with the inconvenient truth about the chronic disease epidemic and its links to an ever-growing childhood vaccination schedule, Kennedy experienced the cognitive dissonance firsthand. As a pro-vaccine parent who had vaccinated his own six children, he faced a difficult and pivotal moment when he was first approached by mothers of vaccine-injured children, including Laura Bono, Lyn Redwood and Rita Shreffler.
In 2005, these “mercury moms” gathered their research and began appearing at Kennedy’s speaking engagements as he toured the country, raising awareness of the environmental impacts of mercury emissions in the water supply. As founder of Waterkeeper Alliance, Kennedy was highly regarded as one of the world’s leading environmental advocates. He spent his time tracking down and suing polluters, including coal-fired power plants, and fighting for stronger environmental regulations. But while he was well-versed on the impact of mercury toxicity on freshwater fish, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was about to be schooled by the original “children’s health defenders.”
“Following many of these appearances, mothers would approach me,” Kennedy recalls in a 2016 interview. “Their tone was always respectful but mildly scolding. They said that if I was serious about eliminating the perils of mercury, I needed to look at thimerosal. Vaccines, they claimed, were the biggest vector for mercury exposure in children. I really didn’t want to get involved because vaccines were pretty remote from my wheelhouse.”
But these moms were determined. And persistent.
“I was impressed with these women,” Kennedy recalls. “Many of them were professionals: doctors, lawyers, scientists, nurses and pharmacists. They were overwhelmingly solid, well-educated, extraordinarily well-informed, rational and persuasive.”
They were also prepared.
Bono and Redwood initiated some of the first vaccine-injury awareness campaigns well before even Andrew Wakefield knew about the potential harm vaccines posed to children. These were some of the moms behind David Kirby’s 2005 book, “Evidence of Harm: Mercury in Vaccines and the Autism Epidemic.” Redwood, a registered nurse and a veritable encyclopedia of all things thimerosal, and Heidi Roger Kidd, a founding board member of SafeMinds, co-authored “Autism: A Novel Form of Mercury Poisoning,” a seminal report highlighting the public health impacts of mercury exposure and toxicity.
Bono — whose son, Jackson, was in the 1989 birth cohort and part of the now infamous Omnibus Autism Proceeding (OAP) that began in 2002 — cofounded the National Autism Association (NAA) in 2003 to provide advocacy, research, training and tools to respond to the most urgent needs of the autism community. It was at NAA that the strong advocacy bond between Shreffler, Bono and Redwood grew. Some of their first projects were raising money to send out press releases detailing the science showing autism was environmental, caused by vaccines, or both.
“We were always watching for anyone who might listen,” recalls Bono, now executive vice president at CHD. “If there was a reporter who mentioned anything about vaccine injury, a Congressman, or anyone who shared a story, we would seek that person out and bombard him with truth.”
A new hope ignited when they heard Kennedy’s speeches about mercury toxicity. “We were just grateful that there was someone who would listen. That he understood mercury. That he read studies and loved science,” says Bono.
Ultimately, it was Sarah Bridges — a psychologist who won an eight-year legal battle in the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, or “vaccine court,” when the U.S. government conceded that vaccines caused her son’s autism, awarding compensation for his injuries — who showed up in Cape Cod and convinced Kennedy to review the formidable stack of scientific studies she brought to his front stoop.
Kennedy was immediately struck by the chasm separating scientific reality from the consensus narrative perpetuated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other alphabet agencies and constantly reinforced by mainstream media. He quickly realized that vaccines are not subject to the same safety standards applied to other pharmaceutical products in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval process, and he was dismayed by the absence of large-scale, double-blind, inert placebo-controlled studies. In short, no sound science supported the “safe and effective” mantra of the medical establishment.
Redwood then presented Kennedy with a copy of the Simpsonwood transcripts.
Obtained through a FOIA request by attorney Elizabeth Birt, mother of a son with autism, the transcripts document a secret emergency meeting among CDC personnel, other high-level public health officials, and all the major vaccine manufacturers convened in response to a troubling analysis of CDC data regarding thimerosal. The analysis, conducted by Belgian researcher Thomas Verstraeten, indicated that the massive mercury doses infants were receiving due to the recently expanded vaccination schedule were leading to an epidemic of childhood neurological disorders. The transcripts reveal public health bureaucrats conspiring to bury the incriminating data, making their priorities abundantly clear. Those profiting from the fatally flawed childhood vaccination program were much more interested in protecting their enterprise than protecting children’s brains and bodies.
Angered by this callous disregard for children, Kennedy wrote an article co-published by Rolling Stone magazine and Salon entitled “Deadly Immunity,” inviting the wrath of Big Pharma and mainstream media. Fortunately, it also grabbed the attention of human rights attorney Mary Holland, who was struggling with her son’s vaccine injury at the time. Unbeknownst to him, Kennedy had awakened someone who would become one of his most powerful legal allies. Holland dove deep, devoured the science and went on to co-author “Vaccine Epidemic” and “The HPV Vaccine on Trial.” Their paths crossed many times during shared missions before Holland joined CHD in 2019.
Doubling Down on a Fight for Children’s Health
Having spent most of his career working as an environmental and public health advocate, Kennedy had seen how the corrupting influence of industry transformed regulatory agencies into obedient enablers. He thought he knew all there was to know about “regulatory capture.” But in his best-selling book, “The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health,” Kennedy explains:
“From the moment of my reluctant entrance into the vaccine debate in 2005, I was astonished to realize that the pervasive web of deep financial entanglements between Pharma and the government health agencies had put regulatory capture on steroids… High-level officials, including Dr. Fauci, receive yearly emoluments of up to $150,000 in royalty payments on products that they help develop and then usher through the approval process. The FDA receives 45% of its budget from the pharmaceutical industry, through what are euphemistically called ‘user fees.’ When I learned that extraordinary fact, the disastrous health of American people was no longer a mystery. I wondered what the environment would look like if the EPA received 45% of its budget from the coal industry!”
In 2015, while doing a promotional tour with Eric Gladen for his film, “Trace Amounts,” which documents Gladen’s experience with mercury poisoning following a tetanus vaccine, Kennedy realized that eradicating vaccine mandates would require more than just activism.
“The forces arrayed against us were just too powerful. We needed a paid professional staff who awakens every morning thinking of nothing except how to solve this problem—how to force a national debate and expose the phony science and CDC corruption.”
In 2016, Kennedy joined forces with Gladen, Redwood and Bono to launch the World Mercury Project (WMP), which would eventually become Children’s Health Defense. WMP’s original mission was to end exposure to neurotoxic mercury in fish, medical products, dental amalgams and vaccines and make sound science the driver of public policy.
If You Build it, They Will Come
WMP was organized around Kennedy’s intention to create Martin Luther King’s “tools of advocacy”: agitation, legislation, litigation, education, and media and grassroots activism. This immediately drew the attention of parents who had already been working and volunteering in other capacities at organizations like SafeMinds and NAA.
In September 2018, the WMP changed its name to Children’s Health Defense and expanded its mission to include all toxic environmental insults negatively affecting the health of children, including vaccines. CHD’s strategy includes four major pillars: science, education, litigation and advocacy.
It quickly became apparent that to make any real progress, someone would have to lay down the law to protect our children. To get these issues into the courtroom, Children’s Health Defense brought Mary Holland on board. A former Research Scholar and Director of the Graduate Lawyering Program at NYU School of Law, Holland spearheads CHD’s litigation efforts. CHD is now aggressively defending children’s health in dozens of lawsuits.
In its six years, CHD’s work has grown exponentially. Lynne Arnold, who began creating a technology framework for WMP in late 2016, expanded her efforts to support CHD’s website, its online news-and-views publication, The Defender, and most recently, CHD-TV.
In 2020, Karen McDonough brought her experience managing chapters for the National Autism Association to help establish and direct CHD Chapters as “boots on the ground” advocates expanding CHD’s efforts at the local level, launching 21 state and regional chapters in the U.S. and 5 international chapters.
Kari Bundy, who became an activist for informed consent and vaccine safety after her child died following routine four-month vaccinations, joined CHD in 2020. She manages the translation of The Defender into five other languages: Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Portuguese, as well as the translation of CHD legal and science documents, flyers, books and social media assets.
Microbiologist and bioengineer Brian Hooker, Ph.D. — best known for his work with CDC whistleblower Dr. William Thompson, exposing fraud and corruption within the CDC’s vaccine safety research arm — worked in various capacities behind the scenes for many years prior to joining the CHD team in May 2021. His work on some of the original FOIA requests resulted in the release of more than 10,000 pages of documents.
Katie Weisman, a vaccine safety advocate for nearly 20 years and the mother of vaccine-injured triplet boys joined WMP in 2017. Known affectionately as CHD’s “fearless fact-checker,” she tirelessly pursued the truth on behalf of vaccine-injured children until her death in the spring of 2021. CHD established the Katie Weisman Fellowship Scholarship to ensure that her efforts to preserve truth and integrity in research will continue.
In 2021, Polly Tommey, founder of “Autism File” magazine, co-founder of the Autism Trust, and producer of the “Vaxxed” documentaries, joined the CHD team to direct the organization’s film projects as well as CHD-TV.
These are just a handful of the gifted people who show up for our children each and every day as this grassroots movement continues to grow worldwide.
Profiles in Moral Courage
Big Pharma, public health bureaucrats and mainstream media consistently fail to understand that adversity cultivates fortitude. With every move they make to squelch the truth, our advocacy gains ground. Every single member of Children’s Health Defense has grown throughout this ongoing effort. From reading studies to expand their understanding of complex scientific topics, to learning new skills, pooling resources, nurturing community and seeking creative solutions — all have come out as stronger advocates with deeper convictions and an enduring love for children.
Ultimately, Children’s Health Defense is the product of several decades of tireless work required to effect change. When it comes to raising healthy children, it doesn’t just take a village; it takes people willing to consider the totality of evidence around the “health” measures applied to our nation’s children and speak the truth. And it takes the courage to do that in the face of contempt and adversity. In other words, it takes guts.
When asked about the impact of this work on his career and personal life, Kennedy responded, “I see them going through that, and anything that I go through is like nothing, nothing… I just don’t get frustrated by it because all I have to do is think, ‘I’m here for those parents.’”
Millions of people are reaching the same conclusions about the repercussions of an aggressive, poorly tested vaccine protocol and are stepping up to become Defenders. CHD is here to ensure they have the education and tools to accomplish their goals. Thousands of families are catapulting out of their comfort zones as they witness the devastating impacts of risky government-promoted medical procedures on millions of children. Our team will not rest until these children and their families are seen and heard and the companies and institutions responsible for their suffering are held accountable. We’re already well on our way.
As Robert F. Kennedy Sr. once said, “Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality of those who seek to change a world which yields most painfully to change.”
