One of the newly appointed vaccine advisors chosen by U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has raked in thousands upon thousands of dollars serving as an expert witness in court cases against the Merck Gardasil vaccine, records from those trials show.
Martin Kulldorff, a biostatistician and epidemiologist who publicly criticized COVID-related restrictions, is one of eight new members named by Kennedy on Wednesday to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices—a highly influential panel that recommends which vaccinations the American public should receive.
This week, Kennedy dismissed the previous 17-member committee of expert vaccine advisers that decided whether to recommend vaccines for the CDC. He said the committee was "plagued with persistent conflicts of interest" and had too many ties to drugmakers. Some members had too many conflicts and were asked to retire. Other members had no conflicts.
Recently, Kulldorff was an expert witness for plaintiffs who sued Merck. The plaintiffs accused Merck of concealing the risks of Gardasil, which is a vaccine intended to prevent certain cancers caused by human papillomavirus (HPV). A federal judge in North Carolina ruled in Merck's favor in early March, concerning one of those cases that included around 200 lawsuits.
In October, a deposition was held in which Kulldorff gave testimony. He stated that the plaintiffs were compensating him at a rate of $400 per hour and that he had thus far submitted billing statements indicating he had worked 82.5 hours on this matter. He also testified that he received a $4,000 retainer in the North Carolina case.
Kulldorff also appears in records as an expert witness in a comparable case filed against Merck in Los Angeles state court.
According to the rules established by ACIP, members of the committee are not allowed to be paid litigation consultants or expert witnesses in legal cases that involve vaccine manufacturers. This rule not only protects ACIP's work from conflicts of interest, but it also shields the committee's members from the potential fallout that could occur from being on one side of a significant legal case involving a major public health decision.
Expert witness work against drug manufacturers prior to confirmation may mean the nominee needs a waiver from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Work as an expert witness also may require the same kind of recusal that other controversial nominees have had to take in the past. Merck has a vaccine against human papillomavirus, or HPV. The agency has said in its rules it "will generally consider issuance of waivers in specific situations."
Before he became part of the Trump administration, Kennedy had a lengthy career as a plaintiffs' attorney and was a key figure in the organizing of huge litigation against Merck over its vaccine, Gardasil, which had a yielded a bonanza of $8.58 billion in sales in 2024.
The CDC recommends the shot as a routine immunization for 11 and 12-year-olds to prevent cervical and certain head and neck cancers caused by the virus.
Kennedy’s work on the Gardasil case gained congressional attention during the health secretary confirmation process. Kennedy said he would transfer his financial interest in that litigation to his non-dependent, adult son. In a message posted on X, Kennedy extolled Kulldorff as a "preeminent authority on vaccine safety and the surveillance of infectious diseases." He also mentioned his former role in government service and, particularly, his tenure on a vaccine safety subgroup that assisted the full ACIP board. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Kulldorff became well-known for co-authoring the October 2020 Great Barrington Declaration. This document called on public health authorities to stop lockdowns, which Kulldorff and his co-authors asserted were causing "irreparable damage."
One of Kulldorff's co-authors in this endeavor was Dr. Jay Bhattacharya. He now serves under Kennedy as the director of the National Institutes of Health. A 29-page report on Gardasil was authored by Kulldorff and filed with the court on January 6 in the North Carolina case. His conclusion was that Merck had "not done an appropriate job evaluating potential safety problems" related to the shot. He also pointed to his prior service on ACIP's vaccine safety working groups as enhancing the credibility of his report.
In the U.S., Gardasil received approval in 2006 after demonstrating through clinical trials that it was both safe and effective.
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