Which Way From Here, CHD?
"Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster..."
Children’s Health Defense was quickly made aware of our original report on January 7th that showed some of the shocking and inappropriate tweets posted by their employee, Riley Vuyovich.
Disgusted readers from around the world reached out to CHD to express their very serious concerns.
Within hours, Riley was calling this admin’s phone. Feeling extremely uncomfortable, we took a poll of 35,000 COVID-19 Up subscribers on Telegram on what to do next.
Despite spotting two bizarre lies in the voicemail she left, this admin decided not to release the next article.
On Wednesday, January 10, COVID-19 Up was made aware that Riley has seemingly been scrubbed from CHD’s website.
Typing her name into the search field at childrenshealthdefense.org yields only one result—an author page with no content.
Many health organizations, independent media outlets, and public figures have been watching this situation closely—and this admin personally knows several that celebrated CHD for “doing the right thing” when they heard this news.
One may assume this means CHD fired Riley, or that she resigned because she cares about protecting CHD.
That’s what all of our admins would do, so, it made a lot of sense.
However, investigative journalist Derrick Broze received the following response from the organization moments before releasing his live video report on Wednesday:
"Our mission at Children’s Health Defense (CHD) is to protect children’s health and freedom. We are aware of an article published on Jan. 7, 2024, concerning allegations of misconduct against one of our employees. We take these allegations very seriously and are conducting an internal administrative investigation. CHD will not speculate or make any comment on these allegations while this investigation is ongoing. We ask that you respect the privacy of all parties involved.”
This statement is also available on CHD’s website. According to the website, it was published on January 8, however, the source code indicates it was published on January 9. There are four snapshots, beginning early January 9, on the Wayback Machine. Regardless of the date, it was published with no fanfare.
According to the video posted by Broze on Wednesday (January 10), Riley now lists herself as a “free agent” on Twitter.
At one point, COVID-19 Up was preparing to report that the leadership at CHD took the appropriate steps and cut ties with Riley in order to keep families served by their organization safe.
While their next steps remain to be seen, we are glad to see the organization is taking action and conducting an investigation. The ball is now in CHD’s court and the organization has the perfect opportunity to do the right thing. We hope this does not amount to a situation akin to the police investigating themselves.
Children’s Health Defense has a duty to its donors and to those it serves. Regardless of what they choose to do next, someone with Riley’s history and content publicly available should never have been put in direct physical contact with children and families let alone represent an organization based on the defense of children in the first place.
We understand that things can slip through the cracks and people can make errors in judgment. We hope to see CHD take the high road. We hope for honesty and transparency. Children’s Health Defense owes this to their donors, their supporters, and the many vulnerable families they serve.
This should serve as a lesson, not only to CHD but to all organizations attempting to do good work. No organization is immune or outside of the reach of dangerous and damaging people. We all must continually be on guard and not dismiss things simply because we know or like someone or because we value their work and contributions.
We are no better than those we seek to replace if we allow evil, immorality, conflicts of interest, and crime within our walls because we choose success, funding, partnership, etc. over what is right.
Children’s Health Defense is a successful organization with a history of doing some incredible work that is changing the world. We truly hope CHD leadership deals with this situation responsibly so they can continue the work that they do both in the United States and on the global stage. Many people are watching and hoping that CHD makes the right move.
Thank you for your support as we deal with this unpleasant story. It has not been easy. For those wondering, we are not out to get Children’s Health Defense or derail RFK Jr’s campaign. This is purely a situation where we saw something so disturbing that we could not be quiet. We could not take the risk that families and children could be put in harm's way.
We believe that it is necessary to engage the court of public opinion in these times because too often, even among allies and those claiming to do good, evil is swept under the rug while profit, status, and success are prioritized.
We will not tolerate pedophilia or families being put at risk within this growing movement of people and organizations trying to make the world a better place.
The WEF is meeting next week, California is trying to put masks back on our children and there's a genocide being perpetrated by our country's closest ally. Are you being paid to write this drivel instead of actual journalism? If you genuinely believed that this person was a pedophile and orphan murderer (LOL) why did you sit on this information for months (years?) instead of calling the police?And even now you share what you claim is evidence of gross sex crimes and murder on a Substack that no one reads. Doesn't add up. Get back to the real work PLEASE
You're losing me here. A simple explanation as to why Riley Vuyovich "no longer" has any articles on The Defender could be that she isn't a journalist at The Defender? I don't believe she has ever written any articles at CHD. Lazy reporting.