BioCentury
ARTICLE | Politics, Policy & Law

Leaked memo on BIO strategy energizes vaccine skeptics

Document describes trade group’s investment in pro-vaccine communications, plans to engage with conservatives in and outside the Trump administration

July 2, 2025 12:19 AM UTC

Anti-vaccine advocates are portraying a leaked memo about BIO’s strategy for communicating about the safety and efficacy of vaccines as evidence that large companies are colluding to undermine HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and his Make America Healthy Again agenda.

Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine organization that Kennedy led until he was nominated as HHS secretary, asserted in a tweet that the memo is a “detailed SECRET trade-association memo plotting the removal of @SecKennedy.” CHD states that the memo “reads like a coup attempt against regulatory reform—and they are spending millions to make sure @RobertKennedyJr is out of office by September.”...