RFK Jr. will continue to collect fees from Merck HPV vaccine lawsuits: Shots

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

Kennedy will only collect fees if Wisner Baum wins, and only for cases that are not against the United States or in which the United States is not a party and does not have a “direct or substantial interest” , according to the filings.

“Pursuant to the referral agreement, I am entitled to receive 10% of the 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, and I will not provide representation services in connection with the cases during my appointment as Secretary.”

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

“RFK Jr’s ethics agreement is inadequate because it does not address the biases created by his continued financial interest in the litigation against Merck,” wrote Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis who specializes in Government Ethics, at NPR.

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

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

The Senate Finance Committee has scheduled a hearing for Wednesday, January 29 to consider Kennedy’s nomination to lead 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 from his nonprofit organization to promote the trial and his concerns about the vaccine. against the human papilloma virus.

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

According to Kennedy’s personal financial disclosure report, he earned $856,559 in referral fees from the law firm. That’s in addition to the $326,056 in salary and benefits he earned from the nonprofit Children’s Health Defense, an organization Kennedy chaired and which has been influential in the anti-vaccine movement. The nonprofit has filed nearly 30 federal and state lawsuits since 2020, some of which target federal agencies it reportedly oversees at HHS. Many of CHD’s lawsuits have 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 candidacy for president, and resigned from CHD effective December 2024.

The filing also shows that Kennedy reported an $8,848,402 share of partnership profits from the law firm Kennedy and Madonna, LLP, which was renamed Madonna and Madonna, LLP. The filing says he received his “final partnership payment in May 2024.” He also made money from another law firm, publishing and various other speaking and endorsement fees.

Edited by Scott Hensley and Jane Greenhalgh