Stand up for the facts!

Our only agenda is to publish the truth so you can be an informed participant in democracy.
We need your help.

More Info

I would like to contribute

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump's pick for Health and Human Services secretary, appears before the Senate Finance Committee for his confirmation hearing, at the Capitol in Washington, Jan. 29, 2025. (AP) Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump's pick for Health and Human Services secretary, appears before the Senate Finance Committee for his confirmation hearing, at the Capitol in Washington, Jan. 29, 2025. (AP)

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump's pick for Health and Human Services secretary, appears before the Senate Finance Committee for his confirmation hearing, at the Capitol in Washington, Jan. 29, 2025. (AP)

Sara Swann
By Sara Swann January 30, 2025

What’s the evidence RFK Jr. profited off vaccine lawsuits? Checking Warren’s claim

If Your Time is short

  • Over the past two years, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. earned more than $2.4 million as a consultant referring cases to the law firm Wisner Baum, government records show. Wisner Baum is suing Merck & Co. over allegations that the pharmaceutical company failed to properly warn patients about HPV vaccine risks.

  • The government documents don’t say for which cases Kennedy received compensation, so it’s unclear how much of that money, if any, came from the Merck lawsuit. Wisner Baum says he has been compensated only for non-vaccine-related cases.

  • Kennedy said if he is confirmed as health secretary, he would receive one final payment from Wisner Baum for his government-related legal work, but going forward, he would be paid only for nongovernmental legal cases.

During health secretary nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Jan. 29 Senate confirmation hearing, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., grilled Kennedy over his involvement in lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers.

"In the past two years, you’ve raked in $2.5 million from a law firm called Wisner Baum," Warren said. "You go online, you do commercials to encourage people to sign up with Wisner Baum to join lawsuits against vaccine makers."

Warren said Kennedy gets paid for everyone who signs up, and if Wisner Baum wins the case, Kennedy receives 10% of the legal fees.

"Have we had a single nominee come through who’s made $2.5 million off suing one of the entities that it would be regulating, and plans to keep getting a take of every lawsuit in the future?" Warren asked Senate Finance Committee chairman Mike Crapo, R-Idaho.

When PolitiFact contacted Warren’s office, a spokesperson clarified that the senator was referring to Wisner Baum suing pharmaceutical company Merck & Co. over allegations it failed to properly warn patients about risks associated with Gardasil, the vaccine that protects against human papillomavirus. HPV is a common sexually transmitted disease that can cause cancers later in life.

Sign up for PolitiFact texts

Over the past two years, Kennedy collectively earned more than $2.4 million as a consultant referring cases to Wisner Baum, according to financial records he filed with the federal government for his health secretary nomination and 2024 presidential run. Warren’s office pointed to these financial records as evidence to support the senator’s hearing remarks.

PolitiFact also contacted Kennedy’s team, but received no response before publication.

Kennedy’s financial records show that in 2024, Wisner Baum paid Kennedy $856,559 for his consultant work.

In 2023, Kennedy earned $1,589,829 for his work at Wisner Baum, records show.

The documents don’t say for which cases Kennedy received compensation. A Wisner Baum spokesperson said in a statement responding to Warren’s hearing remarks that the law firm has not compensated Kennedy for vaccine cases. Wisner Baum said it has paid Kennedy only for cases related to the herbicide Roundup and 2018 California wildfires. Kennedy’s bio on Wisner Baum’s website lists his work on these cases, and the lawsuits against Merck.

As Health and Human Services secretary, Kennedy would oversee the Food and Drug Administration, an agency that regulates companies such as Merck and Monsanto, which produces Roundup.

Warren’s office said in a statement that the money Kennedy earned from Monsanto-related cases shows he has already profited from lawsuits against an entity he would oversee.


Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., questions Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump's pick for Department of Health and Human Services secretary, as he testifies before the Senate Finance Committee during his confirmation hearing at the Capitol in Washington, Jan. 29, 2025. (AP)

The first jury trial against Merck’s Gardasil vaccine began Jan. 21 in a state court in Los Angeles. Separately, there is an ongoing federal court case against Merck involving almost 200 lawsuits filed since 2022 in North Carolina, where one of Merck’s vaccine manufacturing facilities is based. Wisner Baum is involved in both cases.

Kennedy wrote in his ethics agreement that, if confirmed as health secretary, he would resign from his Wisner Baum consultant position, which he has held since 2016. However, Kennedy said he will continue to receive compensation from the firm for certain cases.

"I am entitled to receive 10% of fees awarded in contingency fee cases referred to the firm," Kennedy wrote in his ethics agreement. "I am not trying these cases, I am not an attorney of record for the cases, and I will not provide representational services in connection with the cases during my appointment to the position of Secretary."

Kennedy wrote that, if confirmed, he will receive one final payment from Wisner Baum for all completed cases involving the U.S. government. This includes claims filed under the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, a federal program established in 1986 that allows people who say they were injured by vaccines to seek compensation. The disclosure documents did not say how much that payment is expected to be.

For ongoing and future legal cases involving the U.S. government, Kennedy wrote that he will not receive payment. However, if the Department of Health and Human Services’ ethics office says the government is not a party in a case and doesn’t have a "direct or substantial interest," the ethics agreement said, then Kennedy can collect contingency fee interest from Wisner Baum.

So, if Kennedy is confirmed as health secretary, he could receive substantial compensation from Wisner Baum for his previous referral work in the event the law firm wins or settles its cases against Merck.

Following the hearing, Kennedy submitted written answers to the committee’s follow-up questions. In it, he wrote that he had not yet received compensation from Wisner Baum related to any lawsuit against Merck related to Gardasil. "An amendment to my Ethics Agreement is in process, and it provides that I will divest my interest in any such litigation," he said.

When asked if he or any family members "ever received, or expect to receive, any compensation from Wisner Baum from any lawsuit against Merck related to Gardasil," Kennedy wrote he was amending his ethics agreement to send any proceeds from the suit to go to his son. Kennedy did not say which son, although his son Conor Kennedy is an attorney at Wisner Baum.

Featured Fact-check

Government documents show that Kennedy resigned from his positions as chairman and chief legal counsel for Children’s Health Defense in December 2024. He earned $326,056 in salary and benefits from the antivaccine group for three months of work in 2023 before taking an unpaid leave of absence April 1, 2023. A few days later, on April 5, 2023, Kennedy filed candidacy paperwork with the Federal Election Commission for his 2024 presidential run.

Kennedy has made numerous false claims about vaccines, including ones that protect against COVID-19 and HPV. These falsehoods were part of Kennedy’s presidential campaign of conspiracy theories that PolitiFact named the 2023 Lie of the Year.

Kennedy has said receiving the HPV vaccine Gardasil increases cervical cancer risk. There’s no evidence for that. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — an agency Kennedy will oversee if confirmed as Department of Health and Human Services secretary — said the HPV vaccine is safe and effective in preventing HPV infection. The CDC recommends two doses of the vaccine at ages 11 to 12.

The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia said that "because the HPV vaccine is made using only a single protein from each type of the virus, it can’t cause HPV infection, and, therefore, it can’t cause cervical cancer or other cancers."

Our ruling

Warren said Kennedy "made $2.5 million off suing one of the entities that (he would be regulating) and plans to keep getting a take of every lawsuit in the future."

Warren was referring to Kennedy’s consulting work for Wisner Baum. Kennedy’s financial records show he earned more than $2.4 million over two years from his work referring cases to Wisner Baum.

On its website, Wisner Baum touts Kennedy’s work on its vaccine-related litigation against Merck as well as on other cases. However, it’s not clear from Kennedy’s financial records which legal cases Wisner Baum has paid him for. The law firm asserts it has compensated Kennedy only for non-vaccine related litigation, including for cases related to the herbicide Roundup, which is owned by a company the FDA regulates.

If confirmed as health secretary, Kennedy said in an ethics agreement that he would continue to receive compensation from the law firm for certain legal cases. He said he would receive one last payment from Wisner Baum for his prior work on government-related cases, but would otherwise stop receiving payment for cases involving the U.S. government.

It is possible that adhering to that promise would still leave room for Kennedy to receive payment from cases related to companies he regulates, if the Department of Health and Human Services’ ethics office determines the lawsuits don’t involve the U.S. government.

In answer to follow-up questions to the committee, Kennedy later said he was amending his ethics agreement to divest his interest in any such litigation and said he would give future proceeds from such lawsuits to his son. 

Warren’s claim is partially accurate — Kennedy has received $2.4 million related to lawsuits, some of them involving entities he would regulate as health secretary, and an ethics agreement said he expects to continue to receive payment from a law firm engaged in suing pharmaceutical companies, although Kennedy later said he would change that to send any such payment to his son instead. But Warren omitted this important context: Kennedy’s financial disclosures don’t make clear what lawsuits he was paid for. The Wisner Baum law firm says Kennedy has been compensated only for non-vaccine-related cases.

The available evidence for this claim fits our definition of Half True.

PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

UPDATE, Jan. 31, 2025: This story has been updated to include information from written documents that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. submitted to senators following his Jan. 29 hearing. In them, he said he would amend his ethics report to divest himself of any future profits from lawsuits stemming from litigation involving Merck and would instead direct such profits to his son.

RELATED: ‘I never said it': RFK Jr. downplays past statements during Senate confirmation hearing

Our Sources

Email exchange with a spokesperson for Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Jan. 29, 2025

Email exchange with a spokesperson for Wisner Baum, Jan. 29, 2025

YouTube, "The Associated Press - LIVE: RFK Jr.’s confirmation hearing for health secretary," Jan. 29, 2025

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., X post, Jan. 25, 2023

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "HPV Vaccination," Aug. 20, 2024

Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, "Questions and Answers about HPV and the Vaccine," Feb. 9, 2021

Office of Government Ethics, "Robert F. Kennedy Jr. - Executive Branch Personnel Public Financial Disclosure Report (OGE Form 278e)," Jan. 22, 2025

Office of Government Ethics, "Robert F. Kennedy Jr. - Ethics Agreement," Jan. 22, 2025

Office of Government Ethics, "Robert F. Kennedy Jr. - Presidential Candidate Financial Disclosure Report," June 30, 2023

Office of Government Ethics, "Robert F. Kennedy Jr. - Presidential Candidate Financial Disclosure Report," July 3, 2024

Senate Finance Committee, "Crapo Announces HHS Secretary Nomination Hearing," Jan. 22, 2025

PolitiFact, "Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign of conspiracy theories: PolitiFact’s 2023 Lie of the Year," Dec. 21, 2023

NPR, "RFK Jr. plans to keep a financial stake in lawsuits against the drugmaker Merck," Jan. 22, 2025

The New York Times, "Kennedy Is Keeping His Stake in Vaccine Litigation," Jan. 29, 2025

Health Resources Services Administration, "National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP)," April 2019

Wisner Baum, "Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. | Wisner Baum Co-Counsel," accessed Jan. 29, 2025

Federal Election Commission, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. statement of candidacy, April 5, 2023

Fortune, "Merck’s $8 billion cancer vaccine faces first U.S. jury trial," Jan. 27, 2025

Charlotte Observer, "Patients file lawsuits in Charlotte court alleging issues caused by Merck’s HPV vaccines," March 8, 2024

Browse the Truth-O-Meter

More by Sara Swann

slide 4 to 6 of 15

What’s the evidence RFK Jr. profited off vaccine lawsuits? Checking Warren’s claim

Support independent fact-checking.
Become a member!

In a world of wild talk and fake news, help us stand up for the facts.

Sign me up