As the confirmation hearings of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to serve as the country’s main health official Play in Capitol HillPresident Trump’s candidate to direct the Department of Health and Human Services faces scrutiny not only for his antivacamic views, but if he is obtained from them.
If confirmed, Kennedy would exercise control over the federal vaccine policy and the regulation of medication manufacturers, even when potentially benefiting from vaccines related to litigation.
How Kennedy earned money with demands
Kennedy for years has obtained reference rates from Wisner Baum, a law firm of personal injury lawyers of Los Angeles that is currently demanding at Merck, claiming that the pharmaceutical giant could not adequately notice the public about the risks of his vaccine against human papilloma (VPV), Gardasil, according to Gardasil, according to financial dissemination Documents Filed by Kennedy with the Government Ethics Office.
Wisner Baum represents a plaintiff in a trial against Merck and other lawsuits are in process in North Carolina.
“An overwhelming body of scientific evidence, which includes more than 30 years of research and development together with evidence of the real world generated by Merck and by independent researchers, continues to support the security and efficacy profiles of our VPV vaccines,” Rahway, Rahway, Rahway, Rahway, New Jersey, based in New Jersey. Merck said Tuesday in a statement In the dispute. “The defendant’s accusations have no merit, and we continue to defend themselves vigorously against these claims in the next trial.”
At an audience of the Congress on Wednesday, Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, repeatedly asked Kennedy if she would agree to renounce the payments derived from the litigation against drug manufacturers after revealing in the presentations of the Ethics Office that It could charge legal fees for referring to possible plaintiffs in Wisner Baum’s’s’s costumes against Merck over their HPV vaccine, which is to prevent cervical cancer.
Kennedy has won around $ 2.5 million since 2022 in his work with the law firm, including $ 850,000 last year, according to public records. Kennedy, himself a personal injury lawyer for a long time, could win even more if the litigation against Merck prevails since he is choosing to maintain his participation in the pending judicial case, in accordance with the ethical documents presented before his audiences Confirmation.
Kennedy has a consulting agreement to refer to cases to Wisner Baum, which seeks cases related to VPV Vaccine Gardasil. If Kennedy is confirmed, he said he would resign from that agreement.
“I have the right to receive 10% of the rates granted in cases of contingency rates referring to the company,” Kennedy said in his ethics commitment. According to the document, Kennedy will retain an interest in cases that do not involve the United States as part and in which the United States does not have a “direct and substantial interest.”
At the same time, Kennedy promised to get rid of his rights to payment in cases of contingency rates in which the United States is a direct or large interest for a “member of the adult non -dependent adult.”
Financial conflict of interest?
Kennedy’s plan to continue collecting contingency rates while performing as secretary of health and human services raises questions as a matter of ethics and politics, according to Kathleen Clark, a law professor at the University of Washington in St. Louis, “is very Unusual for a cabinet secretary to retain an interest in the contingency rates litigation, “Clark told CBS Moneywatch. “It’s worrying.”
For example, if Kennedy can be obtained financially in demands against Merck or other drug manufacturers, its impartiality as HHS secretary could face scrutiny if companies faced a federal compliance action or present a medication for government approval, Clark added .
Wisner Baum said he has not paid Kennedy for his work linked to the company’s demands, which is just beginning in California.
The firm “has only compensated Mr. Kennedy for cases of non -Hodgkins lymphoma induced by Monsanto, all cases of fire for the Woolsey fire. All these cases alleged corporate irregularities that caused damage to the victims to the victims,” he said Wisner Baum Baum. In a statement to CBS Moneywatch.
“We are currently in trial in the first case of Gardasil in Los Angeles. We hope that, as in Roundup, Soundbites take a rear seat for truth, take a rear seat to real evidence, and a jury returns a verdict that sends the same Message that made multiple jurors in Roundup: consumers deserve to know the truth, and politics has nothing to do with that, “said Wisner Baum’s managing partner, R. Brent Wisner, alluding to the long -standing ligation against Monsanto, Now owned by Bayner from Germany, on a alleged weedkiller cause cancer.
Kennedy also won another $ 326,056 in salary and benefits of children’s health defense, which he founded and previously presided, according to his ethics presentations. The non -profit organization has presented dozens of state and federal demands that challenge vaccines and public health mandates. Its objectives include the federal agencies that Kennedy would execute in HHS.
During the hearing, Warren pointed out several changes that Kennedy could make that he could enrich him in relation to such demands if he is approved as Secretary of Health. That includes appointing anti -cacamic defenders for vaccine advice panels, eliminating recommendations vaccines or changing the way in which the vaccine injury compensation program works.
Kennedy did not commit to Warren’s request to give up contingency rates while working as HHS secretary.
“No one should be deceived here, since HHS secretary Robert Kennedy will have the power to undermine vaccines and the manufacture of vaccines throughout our country,” Warren said.
A Kennedy spokesman did not respond to a telephone message requesting comments. The representatives of the Trump Transition team could not immediately come to comment.
Pending maha brand brand
Previously at Wednesday’s hearing, Senator Mike Crapo, a Idaho Republican, asked Kennedy if there was something “of what he knows in his background that he can present a conflict of interest within the duties of the office to which he has been nominated?
Kennedy replied “No, Mr. President.”
As part of the confirmation procedures, Kennedy revealed in December winning $ 100,000 of the variations of his slogan, “make America healthy again” and its abbreviation, Maha, in stickers, hats and hoodie. Kennedy had requested in recent months the protection of brands for the phrase, preparing the marketing, vitamin supplements, essential oils and cryptocurrencies, according to Documents Filed before the US Patent and Marks Office.
Since then, Kennedy has transferred the property of the registered trademark application to a limited liability company administered by Del Gibtree, an anti -cacuna activist for a long time.
contributed to this report.
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