By CHRISTINA JEWETT, SUSANNE CRAIG and SHERYL GAY STOLBERG NYTimes News Service
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told lawmakers in responses to questions released Friday that he would divest his interest in litigation against a major HPV vaccine maker and would sign over the financial stake to an adult son.

He also disclosed he had reached at least one settlement agreement with a company or individual that had accused him of “misconduct or inappropriate behavior.” No other details were provided.

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At his two Senate confirmation hearings this week, several Democrats assailed his legal work, which included referrals for lawsuits against a vaccine maker. In the ethics agreement he provided to senators as part of the process to become the nation’s health secretary, he stated that he would keep his financial stake in cases that he referred to Wisner Baum, a personal injury law firm based in Los Angeles.

Kennedy told senators Thursday that he had sent hundreds of cases to the firm for lawsuits against drugmaker Merck claiming injuries from the company’s Gardasil vaccine, which is given to prevent cervical cancer that can be caused by the human papillomavirus, or HPV.

After fiery grilling from senators, Kennedy said Thursday that he would relinquish his financial stake but did not elaborate.

On Friday, he provided additional details in his written answers to the senators’ questions: “An amendment to my ethics agreement is in process,” Kennedy wrote. “It provides that I will divest my interest in any such litigation via an assignment to my nondependent, adult son.”

Kennedy has more than one adult son, though one of them, Conor Kennedy, is a lawyer at Wisner Baum, the firm trying the cases. The younger Kennedy’s biography on the firm’s website states that he works on litigation involving claims that the drug Zantac caused cancer and also on cases against opioid makers that claim widespread malfeasance underlying the epidemic of opioid-related deaths.

The first of many lawsuits claiming that young people were harmed by the HPV vaccine is on trial in Los Angeles Superior Court. Robert Kennedy has used social media to promote the claims; in 2022, he posted a video to recruit additional plaintiffs. Merck said the allegations have no merit.

In that California trial, Wisner Baum lawyers are representing a young plaintiff who claims she suffered from a blood circulation disorder after receiving the HPV vaccine.

Conor Kennedy and Wisner Baum were not available for comment. Katie Miller, a spokesperson for Robert Kennedy, did not respond immediately to requests for comment, including one asking which son would be granted the stake in litigation.

The value of Robert Kennedy’s interest in the litigation is not known. In his initial ethics agreement, he stated, “I’m entitled to receive 10% of fees awarded in contingency fee cases referred to the firm.” He wrote that he is not a lawyer in any of the cases.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who fiercely criticized the arrangement during the Senate finance hearing, said Friday that she wanted to see the amended ethics agreement before a vote.

She noted that she was concerned about Kennedy “leaving the window open to profit from other anti-vax lawsuits.”

If confirmed as secretary of the Health and Human Services Department, Kennedy would have far-reaching authority over decisions involving drug approvals, safety actions, and funding and guidance for the nation’s pharmaceutical and health care companies and insurers.

Warren again on Friday demanded that he pledge to refrain from profiting from litigation against any entity regulated by the department for four years after leaving the post.

“It’s also critical that the revised ethics agreement ensures that he cannot use his role as health secretary to open the floodgates to more anti-vaccine litigation and then cash in after he leaves office,” Warren wrote in a statement.

After this week’s back-to-back confirmation hearings, it will be up to the Senate Finance Committee to decide whether to send Kennedy’s nomination to the floor for a full vote. One influential Republican and committee member, Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, is clearly agonizing over how to vote. A committee vote is likely next week.

If Cassidy, who is a physician, votes against Kennedy and no Democrats vote for him, Republican leaders might have to use a procedural tactic to send the nomination forward. Other Republicans, including Sen. Mitch McConnell, a polio survivor and the former Republican leader, also seem uneasy with Kennedy. In a closely divided Senate, Kennedy can afford to lose only three votes if he is to win final confirmation.

Kennedy, a former environmental lawyer and part of a team of lawyers who won a $289 million judgment against agricultural giant Monsanto, has spoken in the past about his belief that change cannot be made through legislation, but by legal court challenge.

“You can’t do it through Congress, but you can do it by generating enough really high-quality, good-quality science that so that the attorneys can come in and do it, and it’s the market fixing the problem rather than government,” he said on a podcast during his 2024 presidential campaign.

Ethics rules bar government officials from personally benefiting from their decisions and prohibit certain sharing of wealth with a spouse or a minor child. No such prohibition extends to adult children in those laws and regulations.

Democrats expect to ask follow-up questions to get clarification on a small number of Kennedy’s answers, according to two Democratic aides.

For instance, in his response about the settlement involving inappropriate behavior, Kennedy did not disclose the names of anyone involved in the settlement or settlements. Kennedy will most likely be pressed for additional details.

Kennedy was accused of sexual harassment and assault in the 1990s by Eliza Cooney, who was hired as a part-time babysitter by his family and worked with him when he taught at Pace University. At Thursday’s hearing before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., asked Kennedy about the incident.

“When you were confronted about this accusation, you said you were, quote, not a church boy and that you, quote, have so many skeletons in my closet. You then texted Miss Cooney an apology and indicated you had no memory of what you described,” Murray said, asking pointedly whether he had made sexual advances.

“No, I did not,” Kennedy said, without offering information to substantiate his claim. He added that the account had been debunked. Murray asked why he had apologized. “I apologized for something else,” he replied.

(In the text, whose contents were reported by news organizations including The New York Times in July, Kennedy wrote, “I have no memory of this incident, but I apologize sincerely for anything I ever did that made you feel uncomfortable or anything I did or said that offended you or hurt your feelings.”)

Murray pressed on, asking Kennedy if there were “any other instances where you have made sexual advances toward an individual without their consent? Just yes or no.”

“No,” Kennedy replied.

In the answers he submitted Friday, he did not specify the type of settlement he had reached or the nature of the “misconduct or inappropriate behavior” of which he was accused. In an email statement to The Times on Friday, Murray recalled the exchange over the babysitter and said that Kennedy was “patently unfit” to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

“His answers to the finance committee are deeply troubling — the American people deserve answers, and senators must have them before a vote is held on his nomination,” the statement said.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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