RFK Jr. would keep the participation in HPV vaccine suit if this were confirmed

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Trump’s election to the Minister of Health, retains his financial part of major legal disputes against Merck because of a widespread vaccine that was administered to young people, as published by an ethics agreement and court documents published on Wednesday. This conflict of interest could raise questions for legislators because Mr. Kennedy aims to lead agencies that regulate the drug maker.

The ethics document said Mr. Kennedy would continue to charge fees for cases in which he transferred clients to Wisner Baum, a law firm that sues Merck over Gardasil, a vaccine that protects against human papilloma virus or HPV. The vaccine is administered to young people to prevent cervical and other types of cancer later in life.

The agreement with Wisner Baum, which also includes other matters, has obtained one of the country’s most violent vaccine critics, more than 2.5 million US agreement, approved by the Office for State Ethics as part of the confirmation process. This sum is well over 200,000 US dollars, the latest salary number for the secretary for health and human service, according to a former agency spokesman.

“I have the right to receive 10 percent of the fees in cases of emergency fees that are mentioned to the company,” said Kennedy in the ethics registration. He wrote that he is not a lawyer in any of the cases.

The agreement states that Mr. Kennedy in cases in which the Ethics Office of the Ministry of Health and Human Services can maintain a participation of the Federal Government that the Federal Government does not involve. He will sell his interest in cases, such as those who carry out the program to compensate for national vaccine injuries.

Mr. Kennedy has scolded what he thinks of corruption and conflicts of interest in the government and in the pharmaceutical industry. He swore to eradicate what he calls “regulatory capture” – the close relationships between industry and government, especially drug manufacturers and the food and drug administration.

In ethics, the way for the Senate Health Committee and the Finance Committee to plan hearings for Mr. Kennedy is determined. After her release, Senator Michael D. Crapo, Republican of Idaho and chairman of the Finance Committee, set a hearing for Mr. Kennedy next Wednesday.

The disclosures of Mr. Kennedy could also make the disclosures more difficult. Two influential Republicans, the senators Mitch McConnell from Kentucky and Bill Cassidy from Louisiana, have expressed concerns about Mr. Kennedy’s views. Mr. McConnell is the former Republican leader; Mr. Cassidy, a doctor, is chairman of the health committee.

A democratic member of the finance committee, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, said that Mr. Kennedy’s finances showed “outrageous conflicts of interest that endanger public health”.

“This disclosure shows that RFK Jr. held up a statement from a explanation of dangerous anti-accy delicacies,” she said in an explanation. “Even worse, if he is confirmed, his finances will still be connected to the results of complaints against the Accacine-even if he would have the task of regulating them as health secretary.”

Two ethics experts who checked the agreement said that his share in the complaints was very problematic because the FDA, the drugs and vaccines, would fall into Mr. Kennedy as a health secretary. The experts said that every action that Mr. Kennedy had taken in connection with Merck, one of the world’s greatest drug makers, seemed to be motivated by his financial interest in a good -looking settlement.

“I think he would have to repeat a huge amount so as not to extract money from Merck,” said Richard W. Painter, a legal professor from the University of Minnesota and former lawyer of the White House. “And it almost looks like blackmail.”

A spokeswoman for Mr. Kennedy rejected a statement.

The first of many complaints in which it is claimed that young people were damaged by the HPV vaccine is on trial before the Supreme Court of Los Angeles. Mr. Kennedy has used social media to promote the claims. In 2022 he published a video to recruit additional plaintiffs. Merck said the allegations had no earnings.

Wisner Baum paid Mr. Kennedy around 856,000 US dollars in 2024 and 1.6 million US dollars in the previous year. The records did not show how much of this money came from cases with Merck. Mr. Kennedy has also worked with Wisner Baum on other legal disputes, including cases in connection with the herbicide summary.

Agreements such as the criminal law submitted by Mr. Kennedy and signed by the Office for State Ethics are based on criminal laws that prevent the federal officials from being used and guarded by the appearance of conflicts of interest.

Wisner Baum is not the only law firm received from Mr. Kennedy’s customer transfers. He had a similar agreement with Morgan & Morgan, which provides for the “America’s largest law firm”.

The company recently sued some of the country’s largest food manufacturers and accused them of filling a “cigarette game book for filling our food environment with addictive substances that are aggressively marketed on children and minorities” – language, which reflects Mr. Kennedy’s attack on ultra -proofed food .

Mr. Kennedy does not seem to be involved in this lawsuit and said in the ethics agreement that he would terminate this transfer agreement if confirmed. He also promised that, if he was confirmed, he would end his advisory contract with his book publisher Skyhorse Publishing and sell his interests in a number of companies, including Apple, Amazon and two Biotech companies, Crispr Therapeutics and Dragonfly Therapeutics.

The document in which Mr. Kennedy’s obligations are presented is not clear to what extent he would have to avoid matters related to Merck or the Gardasil vaccine, Mr. Painter, the ethics expert.

Mr. Painter said he believed that senators should refuse to confirm Mr. Kennedy until he eliminates the matter.

Virginia Canter, the chief consultant of the Watchdog Group State Democracy Defenders Action and a former lawyer of the state ethics lawyer, also examined the declaration of ethics and said civil servants. Merck makes a number of vaccines and keytruda, the blockbuster cancer drug.

Ms. Canter said that ethics guidelines contain an impartiality rule that asks the officials to take into account the appearance of bias in their actions. In view of Mr. Kennedy’s potential profit: “How could he be impartial?” she asked.

Gardasil lawsuits, which Mr. Kennedy meant in the claim that young people were developed as an side effects of the vaccine as side effects of the vaccine, as a side effects of the vaccine, orthostatic tachycardia syndrome.

According to a report by Reuters, Mr. Kennedy was a leader in the organization of large law firms to get involved in the cases of Gardasil. In the cases, it is also said that the early studies by Merck about the vaccine were “developed in a way to use, disguise and hide the identification of serious injuries, including injuries with delayed,” said the court files.

Robert Josephson, a spokesman for Merck, found that the website of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “did not determine any security concerns in connection with TOTS according to HPV vaccination”.

“An overwhelming group of scientific evidence, including more than 20 years of research and development, continues to support the security and effectiveness profiles of our HPV vaccines,” said Josephson.

A study carried out in Scotland showed that young people who received the HPV vaccine before their 14 years have no cases of cervical cancer as adults in the late 20s to the mid-1930s if 15 to 17 cases were expected in group.

During the hearing of confirmation of a flood of questions from legislators, Mr. Kennedy may be confronted, including the contradiction against vaccines that contain a petition to revoke the approval of all covid shots during a fatal phase of pandemic.

He has exposed himself to opponents of abortions that underline his almost lifelong belonging to the democratic party. He has also made a dizzying number of demands over the years, including the polio vaccine more fatal than the disease.

Susanne Craig Reported reports.