WASHINGTON (AP) — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is distancing himself from his anti-vaccine work as he seeks to become head of the nation’s top health agency under President Donald Trumpaccording to government ethics documents released Wednesday.
Kennedy has earned about $10 million in income from his work over the past year, which includes speaking fees, running an anti-vaccine nonprofit, and legal fees, filing government ethics. filed for his nomination show. He has millions more tied up in investments and other assets.
If confirmed, he has promised to stop collecting fees for some of his vaccine lawsuits involving the U.S. government.
Kennedy is a lawyer who has worked on lawsuits involving environmental and vaccine-related damage claims against some of the nation’s largest companies. He also said he would forgo paying claims against the United States under the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.
A Kennedy spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday on the filing.
Since December, Kennedy said in the filing that he is no longer president or chief legal counsel of Children’s Health Defense, his nonprofit organization that has launched lawsuits against the federal government over vaccines, including l authorization of the COVID-19 vaccine in children. He previously earned a salary of $326,000 for three months of work at the nonprofit organization in 2023.
But he will benefit in other ways from his anti-vaccine advocacy, which has lasted for several years. Compensation will continue to flow into Kennedy’s bank accounts from referral fees for legal cases that don’t involve the U.S. government, including fees he collects from a law firm that sued Merck sued over Gardasil, its human papillomavirus vaccine that prevents cervical cancer. Last year, he made more than $850,000 from the arrangement.
He will also continue to receive royalties from books he has written, some of which have spread falsehoods about the safety of vaccines and other health issues. Kennedy said he expects at least $2 million in advances for two upcoming books, although he said he would not promote or do further work on those titles if they were confirmed.
Despite his criticism of the pharmaceutical industry, Kennedy also has investments in biotechnology industries, which he would regulate if confirmed to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Kennedy says he plans to divest up to $50,000 from Dragonfly Therapeutics, a pharmaceutical company that develops cancer drugs, as well as up to $15,000 he has in CRISPR Therapeutics, a gene-editing technology. Genoa.
A Senate Finance Committee hearing for Kennedy is scheduled for later this month. The lawyer-turned-politician has been spotted in Washington in recent days, taking part in the festivities for Trump’s inauguration.
He even threw his own “Make America Healthy Again” ball the day Trump was sworn in. “MAHA” has become a popular slogan among Trump and Kennedy loyalists.
And that’s another thing Kennedy reports he profited from in his ethics case: MAHA merchandise, which earned him $100,000.
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Michelle R. Smith in Providence, RI, contributed to this report.
