6 Takeaways From Kim Iversen’s Interview With CHD CEO Mary Holland

CHD CEO Mary Holland on Wednesday joined journalist Kim Iversen for a wide-ranging conversation on censorship, vaccines and the battle against Big Pharma.

by Brenda Baletti, Ph.D.

Big Pharma, government overreach and the fight for health freedom together form “one of the most controversial and urgent battles of our time,” journalist Kim Iversen said on a recent episode of “The Kim Iversen Show.”

The government, Big Tech and the pharmaceutical industry “have worked hand-in-glove to suppress dissent, censor independent voices and put public health at risk,” Iversen said. Organizations like Children’s Health Defense (CHD), founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and led by Iversen’s guest, attorney Mary Holland, are fighting back, she said.

In a wide-ranging conversation, Holland and Iversen discussed the recent announcement by Mark Zuckerberg that Meta is ending its third-party “fact-checking” program, CHD’s lawsuits against Meta and the Biden administration, what Kennedy might do if he’s confirmed as secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the childhood vaccine schedule, vaccine exemptions and more.

Here are 6 takeaways from their conversation:

1. Zuckerberg’s announcement followed CHD’s Supreme Court petition.

CHD sued Meta in 2020 for shadow-banning and demonetizing the organization’s content. In August 2022, the social media giant deplatformed CHD from Facebook and Instagram. Meta has not reinstated the accounts.

After losing in the lower courts, CHD on Monday appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case. Less than 24 hours later, Zuckerberg announced that Meta would end its censorship practices.

Will Zuckerberg’s announcement lead the court to decide against hearing CHD’s case? That’s likely what he hopes for, Holland said, but CHD believes the court must address the serious First Amendment issues at stake.

“I think that this is gaslighting on an extraordinary level,” Holland said. “The First Amendment cannot be decided on the whim of Mark Zuckerberg.”

CHD and Kennedy also have a case before the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals seeking to “hold the government actors directly accountable for having asked the social media platforms to censor us by proxy,” Holland said.

Given how CHD and other alternative media organizations were censored, Holland said, “We felt we had no choice but to step up and to bring these cases,” which are ongoing.

“It’s a long road and frankly Kim, it’s very expensive,” Holland said. “But these are critical issues if we want to have a First Amendment that means anything.”

Holland said that during the COVID-19 period she “learned the hard way” that courts are not insulated from politics. Instead of simply making neutral decisions, they “follow the culture.”

“I think we’re now, I hope, not only going to see profound changes at the congressional level, at the executive level, but presumably we’re going to see some real changes in courts too,” Holland said. “The winds have changed politics.”

2. The childhood vaccine schedule is ‘a cash cow’ for the pharmaceutical industry.

Noting that the childhood vaccination schedule has “exploded” since she was a kid, Iversen said, “It’s really, really scary how many vaccines they pump into these kids.”

Holland said part of the problem is that the members of the advisory committee to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are researchers with deep ties to the pharmaceutical industry. “They’ve never met a vaccine they didn’t like,” she said, calling the committee “a rubber stamp for industry.”

Loading infants up on vaccines is “insane” And “we have bad health to prove it,” Holland said. Fifty percent of kids have some kind of chronic health condition and the “explosion” in these conditions coincides with the “expansion of the vaccine schedule,” Holland said.

The advisory committee recommendations not only determine which vaccines are mandated in schools, but they also shield vaccine manufacturers from liability and help secure funding for the Vaccines for Children Program — the federal government foots the bill for 50% of the program’s vaccine supply.

“It’s a cash cow,” Holland said. Those recommendations carry with them the prospect of billions of dollars because there are more than 70 million children who then have to get those vaccines.

3. Public health measures are more important than vaccines in preventing mortality from infectious disease.

Iversen never thought much about vaccine recommendations until the COVID-19 vaccine controversy, she said. “I think though that now I’ve started to question — I mean, I’ve got to be honest — I’m questioning vaccines entirely.”

She asked Holland whether public health measures such as clean water, sanitation and access to healthy food weren’t more important in reducing mortality from infectious disease.

Holland said that by the 1960s, public health measures had led to plummeting death rates from infectious diseases like measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox, even as the diseases continued to circulate.

She pointed Iversen to CHD’s book “Vax Unvax: Let the Science Speak,” co-authored by Kennedy and CHD Chief Scientific Officer Brian Hooker. “When we look at every kind of childhood disease, the children who are fully unvaccinated are the healthiest,” she said. “That’s what the real science shows.”

4. Vaccine injuries are real, serious and also profitable for Big Pharma.

Holland called vaccine injuries “the saddest and most horrifying dimension” of the vaccine industry. Big Pharma profits not only from vaccines but also from the chronic diseases that often result from them, such as asthma, allergies and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder or ADHD.

She stressed the importance of educating the public about vaccine injuries and their connection to vaccines.

“The notion that the link between vaccines and autism has been debunked is so profoundly ridiculous,” but people remain unaware of the story behind these claims. Making truthful information public will help people make informed decisions about whether to vaccinate their children or which vaccines to choose.

“I think most people, frankly over time, are going to come to the view with truthful information that my kid is better off not getting vaccines in the first many years of life,” she said.

5. Vaccine exemptions for religious or philosophical reasons are available in most states.

Do parents who choose not to vaccinate their children have to homeschool them, Iversen asked?

Holland explained that in 45 states, parents can obtain religious or philosophical exemptions, allowing their children to attend school.

In states like California and New York, however, these exemptions have been eliminated due to lobbying by the medical community and pharmaceutical industry. In those states, parents would need to homeschool their children.

“The world of homeschooling blossomed during COVID,” because schools closed and when they did open the restrictions were often onerous.

Holland also clarified that there is no particular religious belief or dogma required for an exemption. As long as one’s religious conviction to not vaccinate is sincere, it can’t be challenged.

6. The next four years will be crucial in this battle.

Holland believes the next four years will be critical in the fight against Big Pharma, and that the battle won’t be “for the faint of heart.” It will be a “knock-down, drag-out” fight to make scientific evidence about vaccines available to the public.

She said she’s optimistic that if Kennedy is confirmed to lead HHS, he can make lasting changes by holding accountable those responsible, but also by showing real changes in children’s health — fewer children dying in the first year of life, and fewer children diagnosed with chronic health conditions.

Holland hopes Kennedy will ensure that families have “truthful information about what vaccines do and how they work and what the risks and benefits are. And he’s going to ensure, I hope, that people have a choice.”

“Choice is at the heart of ethical medicine,” she said.

Watch here: