Senators Who’ve Raked In Millions From Big Pharma To Question RFK Jr. In Double Hearings
- January 28, 2025
Tristan Justice, The Federalist
President Donald Trump’s pick to run the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will be grilled in public hearings held by lawmakers who’ve pocketed more than $10 million from the pharmaceutical industry.
In a make-or-break moment for the movement to “make America healthy again,” Trump’s nominee to lead the crusade at HHS, environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is scheduled to testify on Capitol Hill Wednesday and Thursday. Kennedy will appear before the Senate Finance Committee first, and the Health, Education Labor & Pensions Committee second.
Democrats worked to stall Kennedy’s confirmation proceedings with ethics complaints outlined in The New York Times last week. Trump’s pick to run HHS, the Times reported, plans to maintain a financial stake in a lawsuit against the vaccine manufacturer Merck.
“The ethics document said Mr. Kennedy would continue to collect fees for cases in which he referred clients to Wisner Baum, a law firm suing Merck over Gardasil, a vaccine that protects against the human papillomavirus, or HPV,” said the Times.
Michael Chamberlain, the director of the non-profit ethics watchdog Protect the Public’s Trust, told The Federalist that Kennedy’s arrangement should not be problematic.
“What’s sad is that much of it appears based more in cynical speculation than factual analysis,” Chamberlain said. “It is evident that RFK, Jr. complied with his obligations to provide all of the relevant information, and he has worked with ethics officials to set up structures to allow him to identify and avoid any conflicts of interest. The real question that should be asked is: what is the motivation behind this cynical speculation?”