During intense questioning Thursday by members of the Senate health committee about his plan to keep a financial stake in major vaccine litigation, Robert F. Kennedy said that he would give away his rights to fees that might flow from it.
It appears to be a reversal from the details of the government ethics agreement that he filed for his Senate confirmation hearings to become the nation’s health secretary.
Just last week, the ethics agreement he provided to senators stated that he would retain a stake in the continuing litigation, meaning that if confirmed, he could receive payments while overseeing the vast U.S. health bureaucracy that includes regulating drug companies. The financial disclosure specified that Mr. Kennedy would collect fees from Wisner Baum, a personal injury law firm based in Los Angeles.
Mr. Kennedy said that he had sent hundreds of clients to the firm, which is suing the drug maker Merck over claims that young people were injured by the company’s Gardasil vaccine, aimed at preventing cervical cancer caused by the human papillomavirus, or HPV. In the ethics statement, he reported: “I am entitled to 10 percent of fees awarded” in cases that he referred to Wisner Baum.
Lawmakers considering his confirmation on Wednesday and Thursday denounced the financial arrangement, with many Democrats suggesting that it posed an inherent conflict because he would stand to gain financially from decisions he made as health secretary that involved drug companies.
“I have given away all of my rights to any fees in that lawsuit,” Mr. Kennedy told senators on Thursday. Asked to elaborate, Katie Miller, a spokeswoman for Mr. Kennedy, said that he “isn’t personally retaining the fees.”
But she did not respond to additional questions as to whether the arrangement with the law firm to pay Mr. Kennedy a 10 percent contingency fee — depending on the outcome of any lawsuit settlement or verdict — would somehow be altered or revised to redirect any payment. It is possible it could be placed in a trust or limited liability company of some sort, or be directed to a family member. The funds could also be dispersed to other lawyers at the firm. (Conor Kennedy, Mr. Kennedy’s son, is a lawyer at Wisner Baum.)
The U.S. Office of Government Ethics, which tends to approve nominees’ agreements, and Wisner Baum did not respond immediately to questions on Thursday. The ethics office has reminded government nominees that they must clear substantive changes to their agreements.
On Wednesday, a widely circulated clip of Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, outlined the ways Mr. Kennedy could influence the lawsuits.
During her questioning, Mr. Kennedy would not commit to walking away from any proceeds of the Gardasil cases, saying he had complied with ethics rules.
“Kennedy can kill off access to vaccines and make millions of dollars while he does it,” Ms. Warren said. “Kids might die, but Robert Kennedy can keep cashing in.”
On Thursday, in the second hearing, Senator Patty Murray, a Democrat of Washington, picked up the thread, talking about how effective the HPV vaccine had been at preventing cervical cancer.
You have “said it actually increases the risk of cervical cancer. Do you stand by those statements?” Ms. Murray asked.
Mr. Kennedy did not answer directly, saying the matter was before a jury this week. Wisner Baum lawyers are representing a young plaintiff who claims she suffered from a blood circulation disorder after receiving the HPV vaccine in a trial that began this month in California.
Senator Tim Kaine, a Democrat of Virginia, continued the line of questioning on Thursday, citing a number of positive studies about Gardasil, which he said is made in Virginia. He asked about Mr. Kennedy’s decision to keep a stake in the litigation.
“How can folks who need to have confidence in federal vaccine programs trust you to be independent and science-based when you stand to gain significant funding if lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers are successful?” Mr. Kaine asked.
That was the first time that Mr. Kennedy publicly disclosed that he was giving up the fees.
Public records show that Mr. Kennedy has earned about $2.5 million from his work with Wisner Baum since 2022.
After Senator Warren’s pointed questions about potential conflicts involving Mr. Kennedy’s financial interests in cases against drug makers, Wisner Baum released a statement saying the $2.5 million in payments were related to Mr. Kennedy’s work on cases involving the weed killer Roundup and others related to wildfires. None of that amount, the firm said, was related to vaccine litigation.
