RFK Jr. to keep collecting fees from lawsuits against Merck over HPV vaccines : Shots

RFK Jr. made $856,559 in referral fees from the law firm Wisner Baum, which is suing Merck over claims its HPV vaccine caused cervical cancer, according to new filings with the Office of Government Ethics.

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Even if Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is confirmed as the next Health and Human Services secretary, he still plans to collect fees from Wisner Baum, a law firm suing Merck over claims that the pharmaceutical company failed to properly warn consumers about risks from its HPV vaccine, Gardasil, according to new filings with the Office of Government Ethics.

Kennedy will only collect the fees if Wisner Baum wins, and only for cases that aren’t against the United States or in which the United States isn’t a party and doesn’t have “a direct or substantial interest,” according to the filings.

“Pursuant to the referral agreement, I am entitled to receive 10% of fees awarded in contingency fee cases referred to the firm,” Kennedy wrote in his signed ethics agreement. “I am not trying these cases, I am not an attorney of record for the cases, and I will not provide representational services in connection with the cases during my appointment to the position of Secretary.”

The filings, submitted to the U.S. Office of Government Ethics as part of the confirmation process, detail Kennedy’s many financial holdings and interests. If he becomes HHS secretary and continues to collect fees, he would be in a position to potentially profit from vaccine litigation while also regulating drugmakers and exercising authority over federal vaccine policy.

“RFK Jr’s ethics agreement is inadequate because it doesn’t address the bias created by his continuing financial interest in the litigation against Merck,” Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis who specializes in government ethics wrote to NPR.

Neither a spokeswoman for Kennedy nor the Trump transition team immediately returned repeated requests for comment.

The documents and their link to the Gardasil vaccine lawsuit were first reported by The New York Times.

The Senate Finance Committee has scheduled a hearing on Wednesday, Jan. 29, to consider Kennedy’s nomination to run HHS.

In Kennedy’s profile page on Wisner Baum’s website, he is first identified as “co-counsel with Wisner Baum in the Gardasil litigation,” and he has used his platforms on social media and through his nonprofit to promote the suit and his concerns with the vaccine against the human papillomavirus.

HPV is a very common sexually transmitted virus that can cause cancers later in life. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends two doses of HPV vaccine at ages 11 to 12 and says it provides safe, effective and lasting protection against HPV infections.

According to Kennedy’s personal financial disclosure report, he made $856,559 in referral fees from the law firm. That’s in addition to $326,056 in salary and benefits he earned from the nonprofit Children’s Health Defense, an organization Kennedy chaired and that has been influential in the anti-vaccine movement. The nonprofit has filed nearly 30 federal and state lawsuits since 2020, including some that target the federal agencies he would oversee at HHS. Many of the legal actions taken by CHD challenged vaccines and public health mandates.

The filing says Kennedy took an unpaid leave of absence from the organization in April 2023, when he declared his run for the presidency, and that he resigned from CHD effective December 2024.

The filing also shows Kennedy declared a $8,848,402 share of partnership profits from the law firm Kennedy and Madonna, LLP, which has been renamed Madonna and Madonna, LLP. The filing says he received his “final partnership payout in May 2024.” He also made money from another law firm, publishing and various other fees for speaking and endorsements.

Edited by Scott Hensley and Jane Greenhalgh