This article, about the recent settlement of Gardasil lawsuits by Merck, was written by Dorit Rubinstein Reiss, Professor of Law at the University of California Law, San Francisco, who is a frequent contributor to this and many other websites, providing in-depth and intellectually stimulating articles about vaccines, medical issues, social policy, and the law.

Professor Reiss writes extensively about the social and legal aspects of vaccination in law journals. Reiss is also a member of the Parent Advisory Board of Voices for Vaccines. This parent-led organization supports and advocates for on-time vaccination and the reduction of vaccine-preventable diseases. She is also a member of the Vaccines Working Group on Ethics and Policy.

On June 4, 2026, Bloomberg Law published an article titled “Merck to Settle Bulk of Gardasil Suits for About $50 Million”. Here is what appears to be a non-pay-walled version. Gardasil is Merck’s vaccine that targets nine strains of HPV, including strains that cause cancer and strains that cause genital warts.  Large studies have shown that the vaccine is both safe and effective.

My reaction on seeing the announcement was surprise, since, as explained below, Merck was doing very well in its litigation. Why settle cases you are set to win? The short answer is that litigation is costly even if you win, and Merck concluded that it’s not worth the cost to fight it when it can settle the claim for what – in the terms of such widespread litigation – is a low amount. I am concerned that this may have been a mistake, but I’m not the one litigating. 

The post below addresses several points about the Gardasil lawsuit settlement. It also describes the cases and explains what such a settlement means and does not mean. It addresses potential broader implications. 

The Gardasil lawsuits

According to the Bloomberg Law article, at least two sets of cases were affected. One was the multi-district litigation I have written about before. This was a collection of several hundred cases by plaintiffs who claimed that HPV vaccines have caused their Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) or primary ovarian insufficiency. The initial claims included allegations of fraud, negligence, and other issues, but many were dismissed in an earlier decision.   On March 11, 2025, the judge hearing these cases ruled, on summary judgment, against the plaintiffs, dismissing the claims, since the judge found that “Simply put, no scientist could reasonably conclude there is a causal association between POTS and POI and Gardasil based on this paucity of evidence”.  The plaintiffs were appealing, but their chances were not good. 

In other words, despite winning these hundreds of cases, Merck would have to pay for an appeal. 

The other case was Jennifer Robi’s case. Robi was also diagnosed, among other things, with POTS, and brought a case in a California court. The case was supposed to go to the jury first in January 2025, but the plaintiffs asked for a deferral, then in September 2025, and according to a more recent article, again in July 2026. It is not clear what the parties were going to argue, but the multi-district litigation decision made the outcome unpromising for the plaintiff, and the repeated deferrals make me, at least, question how good their case was. 

As a result of the settlement, the plaintiffs asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit with prejudice – so it cannot be refiled – on Friday, May 29, 2026. 

Both sets of cases were plaintiffs who went through the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program and then pulled their cases out (if your case in the program lasts more than 240 days, you can pull it out). In many of the cases – as in Robi’s – my impression is that going through the program was pro forma only: the lawyers did not even try to win the cases there, just looked to burn the time to get to the court.

In at least one case that is not part of this litigation, we know that a lawyer aggressively pressured plaintiffs to join the litigation and, when they would not, resigned as their lawyers, leaving them high and dry. I would add that the lawyers who took these cases through the vaccine court, although they did not win, for the most part were paid fees for those cases from the program’s trust fund. 

What does the specific settlement mean, and what does it not? 

Most civil trials end in settlement. Why do parties settle? Generally, because it’s cheaper and more certain. In our system, litigation is costly, and with a jury, the result is uncertain even if you have good evidence and a good case. Settlements save costs and reduce uncertainty, which can be good for both sides. Settlements do not tell you which side was right – they do not have a decision by a third-party decision maker. They are an agreement to end a dispute. 

Why would Merck settle cases in which it has a good claim?  The short answer is that trials cost money and juries are uncertain. Merck was facing a situation where even if it won, it could lose a large chunk of money. In some countries, the side that loses the trial has to pay the other side’s trial costs. Not in the United States. In the United States, Merck will absorb its litigation costs, even if it wins the case – it will still be losing money, just less. 

Fifty million dollars may seem a large sum, but for a case like this, it is not. Remember that the multi-district litigation covered hundreds of plaintiffs. One plaintiff with disabling injuries may get millions in damages to cover costs of care over their lifespan. Here is a recent example — a man left with disabling injuries after being hit by a bus that ran a red light received 33 million dollars. One man, one case.

Fifty million dollars over cases that cover hundreds of plaintiffs is a very, very low amount – and likely won’t even scratch Merck’s bottom line. So maybe it made sense to settle rather than litigate – litigation could easily be more costly, and juries are a wild card.

The case did not and does not mean the plaintiffs had a good case. In fact, chances are they did not, as the multi-district litigation demonstrated. Large studies found no link between HPV vaccines and POTS. 

Broader implications of the Gardasil lawsuits settlement by Merck

• The main winners are likely the plaintiffs’ lawyers. In the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), lawyers are paid an hourly fee determined by their jurisdiction – win or lose. But in the civil court, most civil cases are handled through contingency fees – lawyers take, usually, 30-50% if they win, but not if they lose, though, depending on the agreement, they may still get paid for the trial costs, including expert fees. Out of these $50 million, then, the lawyers likely got a large share, more so if the costs of litigation were deducted from the plaintiffs’ share. In addition, remember that those of the lawyers who brought the initial cases in VICP and then waited the 240 days to pull it out mostly got paid for that, as well. Plaintiffs’ lawyers do an important job: they can call companies to account and help people who are injured. But in this case, they are bringing claims created by an anti-vaccine activist with a history of dishonesty (Robert F. Kennedy Jr.) to attack a vaccine that prevents cancer, and profiting off the claims at the expense of claimants who have a cheaper and easier forum. 
• Plaintiffs’ lawyers likely did not win anything near what they hoped to win. $50 million to these many cases, however they are distributed, is not a lot. And the litigation was likely costly. The initial cases were suggested to be worth billions. We are nowhere near that. After years of litigation and costs, this is not a good deal for them. It’s also a pretty small amount for Merck. There is still a risk that it will encourage other plaintiffs’ lawyers to try again, and repeated litigation may make the Gardasil vaccine less profitable for Merck. 
• What about the plaintiffs? For plaintiffs with strong claims, this is likely not a good outcome. First, each plaintiff is likely to receive a small amount, after deducting the lawyers’ fees. Second, if they had good claims, they could likely be compensated via VICP, and would have received the full award, with expert and lawyer’s fees covered by the program. That is not happening. This is not likely to cover the full costs of someone with a debilitating injury. 
• On the other hand, for plaintiffs whose claims are against the evidence, this is a windfall. They would likely have gotten nothing from VICP, and the multi-district litigation plaintiffs already lost their claim – the judge, in a strong decision, found against them – so they got some money in spite of being unable to support their claims. I certainly think people with disabilities deserve support, but I think that is a matter for public policy, rather than something a private company should be paying for, and conditioning such support on someone blaming vaccines for their harms is both unfair and harmful. Unfair, because why should someone who wrongly blames their disability on Gardasil get money, and someone who does not? And harmful, because incorrect vaccine injury stories may deter others from vaccinating, and in the case of HPV vaccines, HPV causes cancer. Less coverage means more cancer. That’s not good. 
• The litigation gives the lie to the anti-vaccine claim that VICP means companies cannot get to the courts. But it also shows that the fact that it is so easy to get to the courts can be abused – in ways that are against plaintiffs’ interests. VICP is an easier system for claimants: they just have to show causation and damages (they do not have to show the vaccine was defective, or show negligence, or fraud); they get the entire award, and the process is faster and more streamlined – even if it’s not as fast as we would like. Making it so easy for lawyers to channel people away from a forum that is easier for them to a forum where a larger portion of the money goes to the lawyers is a problem. So is paying the lawyers when they, essentially, work to circumvent the program. 
• The litigation also shows why VICP is important to protect our vaccine supply. HPV causes cancer. Gardasil is a safe, effective vaccine. Claimants who can show – to the lower standard set in VICP – that the vaccine harmed them get compensated. In this litigation? Plaintiffs imposed high enough costs on Merck that it ended up settling claims it had already won (the multi-district claims). The settlement was low – reflecting the fact that the plaintiffs’ claims were weak –  but it is there, and if it encourages other plaintiffs’ lawyers to try, the result could be enough costs to deter Merck from making a vaccine that causes cancer – even though the claims were not proven in court and were against the data. It is exactly so that companies do not have to make that choice – stop making a vaccine that saves lives, not because they lost in court, but because ill-founded claims make the vaccine non-profitable – that VICP was created. Well, that, and to make it easier for claimants with valid claims to be compensated.
• Anti-vaccine activists could use this. Anti-vaccine activists would likely have used any evidence that came out of a jury trial – whether they won or lost (remember that they still use depositions from a small family court trial that the anti-vaccine side lost and from a jury trial about vaccines and autism that the anti-vaccine side lost). But they could also try to misrepresent this settlement as evidence that there was something to the cases. It is important to remember that the settlement shows no such thing. It shows that Merck decided the costs of continuing to litigate were too high. 
• Did Kennedy profit from this litigation? Well, first, yes. He was paid for his initial role in the cases. But I do not know if he is getting part of the settlement. The Bloomberg article said that “Kennedy, who had been in line to receive 10% referral fees on successful Gardasil lawsuits, has waived his right to collect that money, Bloomberg News has reported”. Kennedy transferred his stake previously to his son. I don’t know if that means that his transferring his stake to his son means his son gets the money, or the family is getting none. 

Conclusion

Although Merck won its multi-district litigation and had a good chance in the Robi trial, it decided it was not worth its while and settled the cases – including cases it already won – for what is, in such litigation’s terms, a small amount. The settlement does not change the evidence around HPV vaccines, but could be misused by anti-vaccine activists and, if Merck miscalculated, could encourage other litigation that could make HPV vaccines less available – resulting in more cancers. 

Such litigation benefits the lawyers bringing it, but for claimants with valid claims, VICP is a better forum – it’s easier, and they get larger amounts. For claimants whose claims are not valid, this could lead to windfall payments – though likely pretty small ones. 

This reinforces the importance of VICP. There is a bill in the works to improve VICP, among other things, by adding special masters and raising caps for plaintiffs. This bill is more important than ever – and should include some limits on the ability to play with cases just to run the time and pull them out for civil courts, and maybe some protection of the informed consent of plaintiffs as to what pulling their case out from VICP means. Losing life-saving vaccines is a net loss, and claimants with real claims of vaccine harms deserve the easier forum and the assurance of getting the full amount of what they need.