Purported biotech industry memo calls RFK Jr. a ‘direct threat to public health’

Allison DeAngelis is the East Coast biotech and venture capital reporter at STAT, reporting where scientific ideas and money meet. She is also co-host of the weekly biotech podcast, The Readout Loud. You can reach Allison on Signal at AllisonDeAngelis.01.

A memo that purports to summarize a meeting held by members of a leading biotech trade group suggests deep concern about health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s stance on vaccines, and describes him as a “direct threat to public health.”

The four-page document purportedly details topics of conversation at an April 3 meeting of a vaccine policy committee of the trade group BIO, in which attendees discussed anxieties about Kennedy’s positions on vaccines and strategies to engage with more conservative influencers. 

The document also includes an apparent quote from someone in attendance: “it is time to go to The Hill and lobby that it is time for RFK Jr to go.”

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