Congressional Democrats are asking Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to answer for what they say are “deviations” from his ethics agreement that he made.
In a January 2025 ethics disclosure, Kennedy said he would earn a 10% contingency fee when he referred cases to a law firm that represented plaintiffs suing Merck over the HPV vaccine Gardasil.
Kennedy received over $850,000 through this deal in 2024, the disclosure said. However, Kennedy said last month he planned to divest his interest in prior litigation against Merck, and that any proceeds from the lawsuit would go to one of his sons.
Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Angela Alsobrooks, D-Md., and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., sent Kennedy a letter Thursday saying that they learned he changed the ethics agreement, and instead, referred the fees to Wisner Baum.
“Your decision to withhold this information from Congress and apparent failure to report this change to agency ethics officials is deeply alarming,” the senators said. “There is no indication that your ethics agreement was updated to reflect this change, and you have provided no explanation for why the change was not publicly disclosed.”
They added that if the agreement involves “any kind of implicit or explicit agreement with Wisner Baum about future payments or other future rewards in exchange for your Gardasil stake, it would prompt concerns about your ongoing conflicts of interest with the firm, and about the integrity of your decisions at the Department of Health and Human Service.”
HHS Press Secretary Emily Hilliard said in a statement to Politico that Kennedy “fully complied with his ethics agreement and divested his entire financial interest in the Gardasil contingency-fee cases before assuming his duties as Secretary.”
“He retained no financial interest in those fees, and HHS ethics officials confirmed his compliance to the relevant congressional committees,” Hillard said. “Any claim that Secretary Kennedy maintained a financial interest in this litigation after taking office is false.”
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