RFK Jr. Says He Wont Keep Financial Stake in HPV Vaccine Lawsuits
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.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
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