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Anti-vaccine group with ties to RFK Jr. saw another windfall last year, records show (www.nbcnews.com)

submitted 2 weeks ago by MicroWave to c/health

3 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Summary

Del Bigtree’s anti-vaccine nonprofit, the Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN), saw a 74% revenue increase in 2023, totaling $23 million, while spending $17 million on legal battles and advocacy.

ICAN's rise contrasts with a revenue decline for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Children’s Health Defense amid his presidential campaign.

ICAN funds legal actions targeting vaccine mandates and exemptions, producing anti-vaccine media like Bigtree’s show The HighWire.

Critics accuse ICAN of spreading misinformation and exploiting courts, while its funding sources and expenditures, including payments to controversial figures, have drawn scrutiny. Bigtree remains a prominent anti-vaccine figure.

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[–] jaybone 5 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Who is funding this non profit?

[–] Fades 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

I’ll give you three guesses

ICAN was established with a $100,000 grant from the Selz Foundation. Its budget ballooned to $1.4 million in 2017, with one million coming from the Selz Foundation, making ICAN the most well-funded anti-vaccination group in the United States that year.[16] In 2019, the Selz had stopped their funding, but ICAN received $2.46 million funneled through the donor-directed charitable trust investment firm T. Rowe Price, out of total revenue of $3.46 million.[17][18] ICAN reported making $5.5 million in revenue in 2020, a 60% increase from the previous year.[18] The group received a significant part of its funding in the early days of the pandemic from the charitable foundations from investment firm that anonymize donations: $235,000 from Fidelity Investments' foundation (2021-22), $600,000 from The Vanguard Group's foundation (2020 to 2022), $400,000 from Schwab Charitable (2020 to 2022), $135,000 from the Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust (2020 and 2021). It also received $15,000 from Donors Trust (2021).[19]In 2022, ICAN received a total of $13.4 million in funding.[20]

In 2019, ICAN paid a salary of $232,000 to Del Bigtree as its CEO, $162,000 to its Executive Producer Jenn Sherry Parry, $138,000 to its Chief Administrative Officer Catharine Layton, and 111,000 to Patrick Layton as Creative Director.[1][21] An article in Rolling Stone states that Layton stumbled upon the anti-vaccine movement on social media after her two sons were diagnosed with autism.[3]: 1 By 2022, Bigtree's compensation had increased to $284,000.[20]

Despite spreading misinformation about vaccines, the group received a federal loan of $165,600 through the Paycheck Protection Program in 2020.[22][23] It also holds Facebook fundraisers, this contributing $23,000 to its bottom line in 2021.[18] Like other anti-vaccination groups, ICAN directs their Instagram followers to a fundraising tool.[

[–] jaybone 2 points 1 week ago

lol I love how they just have to grift that extra measly $23k from random Facebook users. Who probably make a lot less than the CEO and other employees listed.