WASHINGTON — Two Democratic senators on the Senate Finance Committee are asking for additional ethical commitments from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. due to concerns that his entanglements with vaccine litigation could be a conflict of interest if he is confirmed as health and human services secretary.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Senate Finance Committee ranking member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) expressed concerns about RFK Jr.’s ethics agreements, which will route proceeds from vaccine injury lawsuits to a family member. They also criticized what they called a lack of transparency in his financial disclosures ahead of a scheduled committee vote on Tuesday. It is unclear whether RFK Jr. has the necessary votes to successfully pass out of committee for a vote on the full Senate floor.
The conflict-of-interest concerns center on the fact that RFK Jr. has referred “many hundreds of cases” to the law firm Wisner Baum, including ones related to Merck’s human papillomavirus vaccine Gardasil, according to a written response he gave to the Senate Finance Committee. He was entitled to 10% of the fees that the personal injury law firm earns from those cases, whether by settlement, judgement, or otherwise. He had initially planned to keep his proceeds from the settlements.
But RFK Jr. backed off that stance in documents provided to the committee last week and indicated he is giving away the fees that he could earn from litigation over Gardasil to one of his sons. Additional materials submitted to the Finance Committee indicate that the fees would go to RFK Jr.’s son, Conor Kennedy, who is a lawyer at Wisner Baum.
An amended ethics agreement expanded that commitment further, and RFK Jr. said that he would divest all rights from cases even if they don’t involve the United States, or are of direct and substantial interest to the government. However, RFK Jr. is keeping his rights to be paid for cases related to Boeing and to utility companies related to damages from wildfires.
Warren and Wyden said they find RFK Jr.’s proposed workaround to reroute proceeds from the cases to one of his adult sons “plainly inadequate, as it would appear to allow an immediate family member to benefit financially from your position as Secretary,” as they wrote in their letter.
They further expressed concerns that RFK Jr.’s conflicts related to vaccine lawsuits may go further than fees.
While RFK Jr. in his initial ethics agreement said he is “not an attorney of record” for cases in which Wisner Baum is filing lawsuits against Merck, the Finance Committee found at least five additional cases related to the Gardasil litigation in which he appears to be an attorney of record, the letter states.
The senators also questioned whether the ethics disclosures were complete, and criticized what they termed a lack of transparency into how many cases RFK Jr. referred to Wisner Baum, and which specific vaccines were involved.
It appears that RFK Jr. is choosing this strategy of divestment rather than recusing himself from vaccine-related matters.
RFK Jr. told the committee he would not recuse himself from public statements related to Gardasil, or from vaccine advisory committees, vaccine injury compensation programs, and other activities that could relate to the vaccine.
RFK Jr. filed an amendment to his original financial disclosure report on Saturday to fix “inadvertent errors.” The document added a line to indicate that he had not received any income from a licensing agreement that allowed the use of brand marks for his Make America Healthy Again or MAHA movement, and changed the date of his last payment from the law firm then known as Kennedy & Madonna. He had originally reported $100,000 of income from the licensing agreement.
The senators asked RFK Jr. to commit to recuse himself from all vaccine-related communications and decisions, even beyond Gardasil, and from all matters related to HHS entities that are involved in cases that he or his family has a financial interest in. They also requested that RFK Jr. commit to not litigate cases involving vaccines or vaccine injury programs for at least four years after leaving office.
