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In the minutes before Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took the stage last Thursday at an anti-vaccine conference in Washington, D.C., MAHA Institute President Mark Gorton was calling vaccines "a public health disaster."
The conference was for Children's Health Defense, an anti-vaccine group that has filed dozens of lawsuits against federal agencies, state governments and companies over vaccine requirements and other policies it disagrees with.
Kennedy co-founded the group, and it paid him $326,056 in salary and bonuses in the year before he left his role as chairman of the board and chief legal counsel to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, according to a federal ethics filing.
"Let me be clear. You have a strong and steadfast friend at the White House," Kennedy told the crowd. "We've accomplished in 19 months … things that would have seemed unthinkable two years ago."
Talking to the anti-vaccine group he led so recently is just one of the ways Kennedy is pushing norms. He has also taken cash for book advances, defied his ethics agreement by promoting one of his books on social media and accepted expensive gifts.
"Having a secretary of health and human services not only give a keynote address at an anti-vaccine group that he helped found and continue to promote his anti-vaccine agenda is endangering the health, safety and lives of American citizens and the world at large," says Dr. Jason Goldman, the immediate past president of the American College of Physicians. "Nothing that I have seen with the current secretary of health and human services and his handling of public health and vaccines is, in my opinion, the norm."
The Department of Health and Human Services did not answer a detailed list of questions from NPR. Instead, the department emailed a statement that said, "Secretary Kennedy complies with all applicable federal ethics laws, regulations, and financial disclosure requirements. The Secretary works with HHS career ethics officials to ensure that his financial interests, gifts, outside activities, and other reportable matters are appropriately disclosed and handled consistent with those requirements."
Hefty advances for two books and pricey gifts
Kennedy reported in his latest financial disclosure, signed by an HHS ethics official on Sept. 17 and obtained by NPR afterward, that he received pricey flights from a friend to Fiji and Greece as well as lucrative book advances.
The two book advances were for $2 million apiece from Skyhorse Publishing, which has also published other books Kennedy wrote and also paid him $451,000 in consulting fees the year before he became HHS secretary.
One of the books in the works will be called Unsettled Science. The title is a twist on the term "settled science," often used to describe the evidence for vaccine safety.
Kennedy also received free flights to and from Fiji and Greece and the use of a vacation home in Washington, D.C. Their value totaled more than a quarter of a million dollars, according to the financial disclosure.
Those gifts were from Gavin de Becker, a celebrity security adviser who also wrote a book published by Skyhorse Publishing called Forbidden Facts. It alleges government suppression of information about brain damage from childhood vaccines.
The Kennedy disclosures are unusual, says Virginia Canter at Democracy Defenders Fund, a nonprofit that is focused on fighting corruption and protecting elections. "Those are large amounts of money for a government's public servant to receive while he is in office," she says.
In fact, the gifts and book advances are so large, that she had questions about whether they represent a "supplementation of salary" — something that's prohibited.
She says she would have expected to see the advances when Kennedy filed his initial report during the nomination and confirmation process in 2025. She says it was unusual to see them paid out during Kennedy's time as HHS secretary. "There are strict prohibitions on government officials, particularly those who serve as presidential appointees confirmed by the Senate, [and] the acceptance of what we call 'outside earned income.'"
As for the gifts from de Becker, Canter says, "I would really want to know more about the nature of their friendship. In other words, if it's a gift … based on a personal relationship, is he giving these gifts to all of his friends or is it just Mr. Kennedy?"
For his part, de Becker says the gifts are part of an ongoing friendship between the two men and their families.
"Bobby is my closest friend in the world for many years, and I'm grateful to be able to host him anytime," de Becker told NPR in an email. "He has hosted my family at his homes, he's stayed at mine, we take family vacations together every year, etc. I'm glad to be able to host him anytime, and I love the times our families spend traveling together. My gifts and our family vacations began years before he was at HHS — and I have nothing whatsoever to do with HHS in any regard."
Canter says Kennedy may have wealthy friends who can afford to treat him, but what's OK when you're in the private sector is different when you become a public servant.
The timing of the book advances is particularly noteworthy, she says, considering rules against outside income. If you're a public servant of Kennedy's rank, you aren't allowed to do any book writing — including taking notes — and get paid for it during your time in office.
Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis who specializes in government ethics, agreed. "It seems very weird that RFK Jr. has accepted $4 million in book advances for two books that he has promised not to write or edit during the time that he's HHS Secretary," she says, referring to Kennedy's ethics agreement.
Kennedy also isn't supposed to promote his previous Skyhorse Publishing work, Clark says, citing his ethics agreement..
But in July, he posted from his personal social media account on X about a 2021 book he wrote criticizing Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases from 1984 until 2022.
Kennedy's book, The Real Anthony Fauci, was published by Skyhorse Publishing, and according to Kennedy's ethics agreement, he declared, "During my appointment, I will not engage in any writing, editing, or promotional activities associated with these books and will not provide any other services under the publishing agreement."
Kennedy's latest financial disclosure itself was filed very late. It was due May 15, and they're usually posted publicly within 30 days. Kennedy's was filed Aug. 13, or 90 days late, after receiving an extension. It was then revised four times in September before ethics officials provided it to NPR.
The document has been approved by ethics officials at HHS, but the separate Office of Government Ethics had not yet signed off.
The Gardasil lawsuit
The filing did not fully settle an ongoing question about whether Kennedy or his family made money from his involvement in a legal case against a vaccine company he now regulates.
Kennedy reported in his annual filing that he received a nearly $7,000 payment from Wisner Baum, a law firm that was suing the drug company Merck over claims that it failed to properly warn consumers about risks from its HPV vaccine, Gardasil.
Kennedy's disclosure listed the Wisner Baum payment as "final payment at termination of agreement of Referral Fees On Contingency Fee Case."
But the law firm told NPR it wasn't related to the Gardasil case.
For context, Kennedy's original financial disclosure and ethics agreement from 2025, he planned to collect 10% through contingency fees in the Gardasil case and had received $856,559 in contingency fees from Wisner Baum from other cases in the year prior.
That worried members of congress, like Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, during the confirmation process.
"You go online, you do commercials to encourage people to sign up with Wisner Baum to join lawsuits against vaccine makers," Warren said during the Jan. 29, 2025 hearing. "And for everyone who signs up, you personally get paid, and if they win their case, you get 10% of what they win. So, if you bring in someone who gets $10 million, you walk away with a million dollars."
Afterward, Kennedy amended his ethics agreement, stating that he would "irrevocably assign my right to receive payment in all outstanding contingency fee cases … to a non-dependent, adult family member."
In early June, Merck agreed to settle the lawsuit.
Merck issued the following statement: "After a thorough review of the body of evidence that supports the safety and efficacy profile of our HPV vaccines, both parties in the litigation concluded that it was appropriate to end the litigation in its entirety, resolving all but one case in an amount that is considerably less than Merck's anticipated costs of defense in the litigation and that is not material to Merck."
Neither Merck nor Wisner Baum would comment on the size of the settlement. According to other reports, it was $50 million.
A group of lawmakers in July questioned whether a Kennedy family member was profiting from the settlement, to which Kennedy responded on social media that the fees went "back to the Wisner Baum law firm," something that isn't in his records filed with the Office of Government Ethics.
Kennedy's son Conor is a lawyer at Wisner Baum. He's listed on its website as an associate attorney, but the Gardasil case is not included in his firm profile.
Wisner Baum says, "Secretary Kennedy has not received any fees recovered from the Gardasil cases, nor has anyone in his family."
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