Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Trump’s decide for well being secretary, is conserving his monetary stake in a significant lawsuit in opposition to Merck over a broadly used vaccine administered to younger folks, based on ethics filings launched Wednesday and courtroom paperwork. That battle of curiosity might increase questions for lawmakers as Mr. Kennedy seeks to run businesses that regulate the drugmaker.
Ethics filings say Mr. Kennedy will proceed to gather charges for circumstances through which he referred purchasers to Wisner Baumlegislation agency suing Merck over Gardasil, a vaccine that protects in opposition to the human papillomavirus, or HPV, and is given to adolescents to prevent cervical and other cancers later in life.
The settlement has earned Mr. Kennedy, one of many nation’s fiercest critics of vaccines, greater than $2.5 million in recent times, based on data filed with federal election officers for his presidential bid and with the Workplace of Authorities Ethics as a part of the affirmation course of.
A spokeswoman for Mr. Kennedy didn’t reply to a request for remark.
The primary of many lawsuits alleging that younger folks have been harmed by the vaccine is being heard in Los Angeles Superior Courtroom. Mr Kennedy has used X, the social media platform, to advertise the allegations; in 2022 he posted a video to recruit extra claimants. Merck stated the allegations don’t have any advantage.
Within the ethics submitting, Mr. Kennedy wrote that he was entitled to 10 p.c of royalties “awarded in contingency charge circumstances assigned to the agency.” The data, which observe that he’s not an lawyer in any of the circumstances, say he’ll retain a monetary curiosity within the circumstances, even when they’re upheld, so long as the circumstances don’t contain the federal government, akin to these introduced via the Nationwide Vaccine Compensation program.
Wisner Baum paid Mr. Kennedy about $856,000 in 2024. and $1.6 million the earlier 12 months, monetary paperwork filed with the federal government present. It isn’t clear from the data how a lot of that cash got here from circumstances involving Merck. Mr. Kennedy has additionally labored with Wisner Baum on different litigation, together with circumstances involving the pesticide Roundup.
Agreements just like the one introduced by Mr. Kennedy and signed by the Workplace of Authorities Ethics are based mostly on felony legal guidelines that stop federal staff from performing on their very own and provisions that stop conflicts of curiosity from showing.
The doc outlining what Mr. Kennedy’s duties will probably be is unclear concerning the extent to which he must sidestep points associated to Merck or the Gardasil vaccine, stated Richard Painter, a legislation professor on the College of Minnesota and a former chief White Home ethics lawyer. He stated the association appeared extremely problematic as a result of any motion Mr. Kennedy led associated to Merck might look like motivated by his monetary curiosity in a good-looking association.
“I feel he’ll have to show down an enormous quantity so it does not seem like he is extracting cash from Merck,” Mr. Painter stated. “And it nearly looks like blackmail.”
Mr. Painter stated he thought senators ought to refuse to verify Mr. Kennedy till he resolved the matter. Republican senators had been awaiting Mr. Kennedy’s monetary and ethics disclosures earlier than scheduling affirmation hearings.
On Tuesday, Sen. Mike Crapo, chairman of the Finance Committee, said a reporter the delay in getting them meant the committee wouldn’t maintain a listening to on Mr. Kennedy subsequent week, as Mr. Crapo had hoped. It’s unclear whether or not the discharge of the kinds will change this.
Suzanne Craig contributed reporting.
