Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Faces Scrutiny Over Ethics Pledge Revision

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is facing renewed scrutiny from Democratic lawmakers after altering an ethics pledge made prior to his confirmation, raising fresh doubts about his transparency and official conduct.

Before his confirmation vote last year, Kennedy committed to forfeiting potential earnings from legal actions he helped lead against pharmaceutical companies manufacturing a cervical cancer vaccine.

He assured officials at the time that he would hand his financial rights in the cases to his adult son.

However, members of Congress recently discovered that Kennedy modified his ethics filings shortly after those hearings concluded.

Instead of following through on his pledge to transfer the stake to his son, he assigned it to his former employer, the personal injury firm Wisner Baum, in direct contrast to his sworn statements to lawmakers.

A coalition of Senate Democrats, including Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Ron Wyden of Oregon, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, and Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland, sent a letter to the health secretary on Thursday, noting that he has failed to justify the revision.

"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.

"These troubling findings call into question the veracity of your public ethics commitments, your transparency with Congress and the public, and potentially, your compliance with federal ethics disclosure laws and regulations."

Kennedy did not immediately reply to requests seeking comment on Friday.

The health chief’s statements under oath have drawn sharp criticism on previous occasions as well.

Throughout his arduous confirmation process, which required votes from hesitant Republican senators, Kennedy promised to uphold existing vaccine policies before attempting to alter them once installed in office.

Additionally, he insisted a 2019 journey to Samoa had "nothing to do with vaccines," though documents recently obtained by news outlets contradicted that account.

The Department of Health and Human Services has denied that Kennedy lied regarding the Samoa travel.

In his original ethics filing from January 2025, Kennedy was permitted to keep a 10 percent contingency fee for legal cases he had directed toward Wisner Baum.

He later agreed to amend his ethics agreement to divest those interests to his son following warnings from lawmakers about potential conflicts of interest.

However, an Aug. 25 communication sent to Warren by HHS revealed that Kennedy ultimately signed over the rights directly to Wisner Baum, where his son Conor Kennedy is employed.

"At the time, Secretary Kennedy intended to assign those interests to a non-dependent adult family member," the letter stated.

"After further consideration, Secretary Kennedy irrevocably assigned his outstanding contingency-fee interests in the Gardasil cases directly to Wisner Baum."

Democratic senators are now demanding full details regarding the nature of the agreement with Wisner Baum, cautioning that any arrangement involving future payouts could constitute a 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," the lawmakers' letter to Kennedy said.