Source: Children’s Health Defense

A U.S. Senate hearing scheduled for Wednesday, reportedly to evaluate recent changes at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), may instead be part of a concerted effort by Big Pharma and legacy media outlets to undermine U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a leading health freedom advocate alleged.

Sayer Ji, chairman of the Global Wellness Forum and founder of GreenMedInfo, said Wednesday’s hearing, “Restoring Trust Through Radical Transparency,” is “designed to generate headlines and momentum, potentially forcing the White House to consider firing Kennedy or compelling RFK Jr. to voluntarily step aside.”

Ji suggested these efforts mirror proposals contained within a leaked document — purportedly the minutes of an April meeting of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) — to fight Kennedy’s growing “anti-vaccine rhetoric.”

The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP) organized the hearing. The committee is led by Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who previously questioned some of Kennedy’s actions and public statements.

Two witnesses will testify — former CDC Director Susan Monarez, who President Donald Trump fired last month, and Dr. Debra Houry, the CDC’s former deputy director and chief medical officer. Kennedy will not testify at or participate in the hearing.

According to Politico, which obtained a copy of Monarez’s testimony, Monarez plans to testify that she was fired after refusing to comply with Kennedy’s demands.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) told The Defender that Monarez’s prepared remarks contain “factual inaccuracies and leave out important details,” adding:

“Here’s the reality: Susan Monarez was tasked with returning the CDC to its core mission after decades of bureaucratic inertia, politicized science and mission creep corroded its purpose and squandered public trust.

“Instead, she acted maliciously to undermine the President’s agenda and was fired as a result. Some of her biggest offenses include neglecting to implement President Trump’s executive orders, making policy decisions without the knowledge or consent of Secretary Kennedy or the White House, limiting badge access for Trump’s political appointees, and removing a Secretarial appointee without consulting anyone. When she refused to acknowledge her insubordination, President Trump fired her.”

At a U.S. Senate hearing earlier this month, Kennedy said Monarez had told him she would not endorse any Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommendations.

Ji wrote that with only one side represented, the hearing’s outcome “is preordained.”

“It is highly unusual, if not unprecedented, for a congressional hearing to center on the actions of a Senate-confirmed Cabinet secretary while excluding that official from testifying,” Ji separately told The Defender.

“Make no mistake — we are dealing with a giant cartel,” said Nebraska chiropractor Ben Tapper, who was included among the “Disinformation Dozen.” Tapper said the head of that cartel is Big Pharma, and “their mission is clear: silence anyone who exposes them, crush dissent, and make examples out of people like Kennedy.”

‘Striking convergence’ of private lobbying, public pressure against RFK Jr.

The hearing comes amid turmoil at the CDC. Last month, Houry resigned — and subsequently went public with an op-ed published in The Washington Post in which she suggested that Kennedy was undermining national public health policy.

Other key CDC officials have also resigned recently, including former CDC vaccine chief Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, pediatric infectious disease expert Dr. Lakshmi Panagiotakopoulos and Dr. Fiona Havers, who helped shape vaccine policy.

In June, Kennedy dismissed all 17 members of ACIP and named eight new members to the committee.

Earlier this week, Kennedy named five additional members to ACIP, in the lead-up to the committee’s crucial Sept. 18-19 meeting, during which it will vote on new recommendations for several vaccines, including the COVID-19 vaccine.

In a later Fox News interview, Kennedy said Daskalakis obstructed an investigation into 25 child deaths possibly tied to the COVID-19 vaccines.

Ji wrote that, in the midst of the upheavals at the CDC, the hearing is a sign of a “striking convergence” that “has emerged between BIO’s internal lobbying strategy and a seemingly organic public pressure campaign.”

Ji wrote that this strategy involves “Congressional Convergence,” a coordinated media narrative and foreign influence by the Centers for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) — a nongovernmental organization that previously included Kennedy on its “Disinformation Dozen” list of the 12 “leading online anti-vaxxers.”

Kennedy’s exclusion from hearing ‘unprecedented’

In June, research scientist and author James Lyons-Weiler, Ph.D., first went public with the alleged minutes of an April meeting of BIO’s Vaccine Policy Steering Committee. He said the document was sent “anonymously by whistleblowers.”

In remarks provided to The Defender that month, a BIO spokesperson denied the authenticity of the document and said the organization supports Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda.

The Defender was unable to independently authenticate the document, or communicate directly with its source.

Lyons-Weiler said BIO’s denial was expected, but that “forensic indicators” confirmed the document’s authenticity. He said Kennedy’s exclusion from Wednesday’s hearing is “unprecedented” and likened it to “holding a trial without the defendant.”

According to the BIO document, John F. Crowley, president and CEO of BIO, allegedly participated in the meeting and proposed a “creative communication campaign” targeting legislators and influencers while isolating Kennedy.

Crowley also allegedly suggested that BIO spend $2 million of its cash reserves on “vaccine programs.”

Ji told The Defender that, “In Washington terms, $2 million is not enormous compared to election spending, but it is very significant for a single-issue, targeted communications campaign. It is enough to fund a sustained media and lobbying push of the sort we are now witnessing.”

Participants in the BIO meeting, including current employees and board members of vaccine manufacturers, also allegedly said, “it is time to go to The Hill and lobby that it is time for RFK Jr to go … communicate what’s going on in business.”

Several major pharma companies are listed as members of BIO. According to Open Secrets, 63 of BIO’s 100 lobbyists in 2024 previously held government jobs, while BIO has spent $2.76 million on lobbying efforts this year.

In his Substack post, Ji suggested that the BIO memo is authentic — and represents the “opening salvo” of a “political coup” aimed at undermining Kennedy’s leadership.

Ji noted that the memorandum names Cassidy as an “emergency influential advocate” who could help advance a Pharma-friendly agenda in the Senate and “make or break Kennedy’s role.”

Coordinated effort to get Kennedy removed from office

Ji said that the campaign against Kennedy has, in recent weeks, included a succession of articles and op-eds in legacy news media all suggesting that Kennedy is unfit to lead HHS or outright calling for his resignation — examples of what Ji described as “media narrative synchronization.”

“By late summer 2025, Americans were witnessing a chorus of authoritative voices … all hammering a remarkably unified message” that Kennedy must go, Ji wrote.

Ji cited the example of Defend Public Health, a newly established organization that last month released a report outlining the “horrifying” dangers posed by Kennedy’s leadership of HHS and stating that Kennedy “should be removed from office.”

That report was followed by an open letter posted on a website titled “Save HHS,” signed by over 1,000 current and former HHS employees, addressed to Congress, and co-signed by several medical organizations, demanding Kennedy’s resignation.

Earlier this month, nine former CDC directors co-authored an op-ed published in The New York Times, warning that Kennedy was “endangering every American’s health” and calling upon Congress to “exercise its oversight authority” over HHS.

Ji cited efforts by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to target Kennedy, including a press conference titled “Vaccines Work” earlier this month and a later op-ed published in The Guardian stating that Kennedy “rejects science and must step down.” Last month, Sanders called for a bipartisan investigation into Monarez’s firing.

Ji suggested that while these calls “appeared organic,” they “dovetailed perfectly with the insider strategy mapped out in BIO’s memo.”

“Far from being spontaneous, these developments show a clear through-line back to BIO’s spring strategy,” Ji wrote. He noted that the similar language used in the op-eds and letters questioning Kennedy constitutes evidence of a coordinated campaign. “Such uniformity is not coincidence; it’s coordination,” Ji wrote.

BIO did not respond to a request for comment by press time.

RFK Jr. targeted for ‘capacity to disrupt a profitable status quo around vaccines’

Ji connected efforts targeting Kennedy to a “foreign influence component” in “shaping the anti-RFK Jr. narrative” — namely, the work of the U.K.-based CCDH.

According to documents leaked by a whistleblower last year, CCDH planned “black ops” against Kennedy. “Black ops” are defined as a “secret mission or campaign carried out by a military, governmental or other organization, typically one in which the organization conceals or denies its involvement.”

Ji told The Defender that the “pattern of messaging we’re seeing … reflects the hallmarks of the ‘black ops’ strategies CCDH itself described in 2024” and are reflective of a “coordinated communications campaign.”

CCDH’s work “aligns with U.S. pharmaceutical and political interests” and its interest in Kennedy “stems from his capacity to disrupt a profitable status quo around vaccines and public health,” Ji said.

According to the leaked documents — minutes from internal CCDH staff meetings held between January and October 2024 — CCDH planned these black ops in response to “Nervousness about the impact of him on the election.”

CCDH, currently under investigation by Congress, and its founder and CEO Imran Ahmed maintain ties to members of the U.S. Democratic Party and to key figures in the U.K. Labour Party, including current British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Ji noted that Sanders’ op-ed appeared in The Guardian, which CCDH named as a “key outlet” for publicizing its narratives. The Guardian endorsed Labour and Starmer before last year’s U.K. parliamentary elections.

‘Expect rehearsed outrage, not independent oversight’

For Ji, Wednesday’s hearing “represents the culmination where industry lobbying and public pressure campaigns intersect, with Senator Cassidy — previously identified by BIO as a key ally — presiding over proceedings.”

“Cassidy appears to be the Pharma caucus’ delivery vector for industry narratives. Expect rehearsed outrage, not independent oversight,” Lyons-Weiler said.

Cassidy has previously questioned Kennedy’s positions on vaccines and other public health matters. During Kennedy’s confirmation hearings earlier this year, Cassidy said he was “struggling” with some of Kennedy’s stances.

Ultimately, Cassidy voted to confirm Kennedy, later stating that he and Kennedy had committed to “an unprecedently close collaborative relationship.”

After Kennedy replaced ACIP’s membership in June, Cassidy questioned some of the new nominees and said Kennedy should ensure ACIP “is fully staffed with more robust and balanced representation.”

Earlier this month, however, Cassidy praised Trump and Kennedy’s “radical transparency” agenda.

According to OpenSecrets, Cassidy was the fifth-highest recipient of pharmaceuticals and health products industry donations among U.S. senators in 2023-2024, receiving $329,842.

Cassidy received $712,504 in donations from Pharma between 2019 and 2024, and $1,313,974 from health professionals.

Cassidy’s pharma donors include COVID-19 vaccine makers Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson, and the CEOs of Pfizer and other pharma companies.

Ji wrote that Wednesday’s hearing “is the endgame that BIO envisioned” and “has the feel of a show trial” with the aim of inflicting “a final blow to Kennedy’s credibility” — despite recent Gallup polling data showing that Kennedy is the most popular member of the Trump administration’s cabinet.

Ji told The Defender that Cassidy’s “decision to chair this hearing, while excluding Kennedy from testifying, underscores how industry’s inside strategy is now meeting the outside media push.” He said he expects Cassidy “will frame the hearing as neutral oversight” but will instead “amplify and legitimize a pre-scripted narrative.”

Lyons-Weiler said efforts to challenge Kennedy are faltering, as the timeline outlined in the alleged BIO memo has not occurred according to schedule. “They are scrambling to compress five months of narrative work into five days,” he said.

Valerie Borek, policy director for Stand for Health Freedom, agreed. She said the HELP committee is “powerless” over Kennedy’s actions and that “the only option opponents have … is to cause a distraction and waste everyone’s time.”

“This won’t affect him at all, other than strengthening his supporter base because of the needless, distracting, strategic attacks on him and the work he’s doing to expose and fix a broken system and finally give voice to countless families who show us vaccine injury is real, not rare,” Borek said.

Related articles in The Defender

• Vaccine Lobbyists Deny Calling RFK Jr. ‘Direct Threat to Public Health,’ Declare Support for MAHA
• Group Behind ‘Disinformation Dozen’ Sought to ‘Kill Musk’s Twitter,’ Launch ‘Black Ops’ Against RFK Jr.
• Sparks Fly as RFK Jr. Tells Senators CDC Failed Americans During COVID
• Trump Fires CDC Director Who Clashed With RFK Jr. Over Vaccine Policy
• Sen. Cassidy Calls for Delay of Vaccine Advisers Meeting, Criticizes RFK Jr.’s New Appointees