Senate Democrats Question Kennedy Over Revised Ethics Filing on Vaccine Litigation Fees

Four Democratic senators are seeking answers from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about a change to the ethics agreement he submitted before his confirmation, saying the revision was never disclosed to Congress.

In a letter sent on Thursday, Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Ron Wyden of Oregon, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland asked Kennedy to explain the shift, which they said raises questions about his credibility and the integrity of his decisions.

During his confirmation process last year, Kennedy told lawmakers he would give up fees tied to litigation he had pursued against the makers of a cervical cancer vaccine before joining the government, transferring his financial interest to his adult son.

The senators say they learned recently that shortly after his confirmation hearings, Kennedy amended his ethics disclosures and moved the stake to his former employer, the personal injury law firm Wisner Baum — a step they describe as at odds with the commitments he made under oath.

"Your decision to withhold this information from Congress and apparent failure to report this change to agency ethics officials is deeply alarming," the senators wrote, adding that the findings call into question his public ethics commitments, his transparency and possibly his compliance with federal disclosure rules.

Kennedy's original ethics filing in January 2025 had allowed him to keep a 10% contingency fee in cases he referred to Wisner Baum. After lawmakers warned of a conflict of interest, he agreed to amend the agreement and divest the interest to his son.

In an Aug. 25 letter to Warren, the Department of Health and Human Services said Kennedy had instead assigned the fees to the firm. The letter said Kennedy had initially intended to assign the interests to a non-dependent adult family member but, after further consideration, irrevocably assigned his outstanding contingency-fee interests in the Gardasil cases directly to Wisner Baum. Kennedy's son Conor Kennedy works at the firm.

The senators are now pressing Kennedy on the terms of his arrangement with Wisner Baum, noting that any understanding about future payments or rewards in exchange for the stake could amount to an ongoing conflict of interest.

"If you made any kind of implicit or explicit agreement for future payment or other future rewards with Wisner Baum in exchange for assigning them this stake, it would mean that you have an ongoing conflict of interest that calls into question your integrity and the motivations for your decisions as HHS Secretary," they wrote.

Kennedy did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday.

His confirmation testimony has drawn scrutiny before. During a difficult confirmation process in which he needed support from skeptical Republican lawmakers, Kennedy pledged to maintain existing vaccine policies that he later moved to change. He also said a 2019 trip to Samoa had "nothing to do with vaccines," an account contradicted by documents recently obtained by The Varta Wire. The Department of Health and Human Services has denied that Kennedy lied about the Samoa trip.