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A California woman who sued Merck in 2016, alleging she was disabled by the company’s Gardasil HPV vaccine, has entered into a settlement agreement with the drugmaker.
Jennifer Robi’s lawyers filed papers last week with Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Elaine Lu asking for the case to be permanently dismissed, ending the lawsuit.
Robi’s attorneys told The Defender that her case and other similar cases against the pharmaceutical giant have been resolved. Terms of the settlements are confidential.
A former high school athlete, Robi has been confined to a wheelchair since age 16, after receiving three doses of the Gardasil human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine in 2010 and 2011.
Her landmark lawsuit was the first vaccine injury case to go through the required process of applying for compensation through the federal vaccine injury compensation program and then on to a civil trial.
The trial began in late January 2025, and was slated to run for six weeks. However, after the first few expert witness testimonies, the proceedings were suspended in February by mutual agreement of both parties.
The trial was set to reconvene in September 2025 with a new jury, but the parties reached a settlement instead.
Robi’s original lawsuit also accused Kaiser Foundation Hospitals of medical malpractice for administering the vaccine and failure to diagnose her autoimmune condition and its link to the vaccine. However, in January 2025, just before the start of the trial, Kaiser settled with Robi, avoiding a trial.
Children’s Health Defense (CHD) supported the lawsuit, and other similar cases against Merck.
‘Gratifying’ that Gardasil-injured people are resolving claims
Robi’s case, along with many others against the pharmaceutical giant, were filed in state court. Over 200 similar cases against Merck have also been filed in federal court.
In August 2022, the federal cases were consolidated into multidistrict litigation in a single court.
The consolidation allowed Gardasil lawsuits filed throughout the country to move into coordinated discovery and pretrial proceedings. It also meant that the judge’s decision in the first of those cases, selected with over a dozen others as “bellwether” or exemplar cases, could apply to all pending cases.
While Robi’s case was on hold, a North Carolina federal judge ruled that Merck had immunity from liability for those claims. The plaintiffs are appealing that ruling.
CHD CEO Mary Holland, co-author of “The HPV Vaccine on Trial: Seeking Justice for a Generation Betrayed,” said:
“It was disappointing, despite the evidence compiled by the experts that Gardasil is associated with elevated autoimmune conditions, that the federal judge overseeing the national Gardasil litigation nonetheless erroneously ruled that Merck was immune from liability.”
She said the news about the settlements in the state cases is good. “With a strong appeal of that ruling pending, it is gratifying that these Gardasil-injured vaccinees were able to resolve their claims anyway,” Holland said.
Robi case made ‘thousands of Merck’s internal documents’ available for public scrutiny
Holland said that although there was no final judgment in the case, Robi’s trial made an important contribution to public knowledge about the vaccine’s dangers and Merck’s actions.
“One of the litigation’s achievements has been that thousands of Merck’s internal documents are now available,” she said. “As these documents likely will be scrutinized by new vaccine-injured victims and their lawyers, there will be future efforts to seek justice on behalf of the young people betrayed, as there should be.”
Robi’s case — along with the hundreds of other cases against Merck — alleged that Merck misrepresented safety data and failed to warn consumers about possible side effects, including serious neurological disorders such as postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), primary ovarian insufficiency (POI) and chronic regional pain syndrome.
Unsealed expert reports produced for the trial by Dr. Peter C. Gøtzsche, a Danish physician and world-renowned research methodologist; Lucija Tomljenović, Ph.D., a biochemist and HPV vaccine expert; Dr. Sin Hang Lee, a pathologist and expert in molecular diagnostics, and others revealed that Merck systematically suppressed information about the vaccine’s risk of serious side effects.
Gøtzsche’s expert report argued that Merck deliberately structured its clinical trials to obscure Gardasil’s side effects and intentionally misrepresented the vaccine’s safety profile.
According to investigative reporter Maryanne Demasi, Ph.D., Gøtzsche found that Merck manipulated Gardasil trial data to such an extent that it would be “difficult if not impossible” for any independent scientist or regulator to accurately assess the vaccine’s harms.
Merck used an aluminum-based adjuvant rather than an inert placebo in nearly all of its control groups. Because much harm from vaccines comes from the adjuvant, giving both groups the same adjuvant would yield a result where adverse effects were about the same in both groups.
The company also failed to track autoimmune reactions and other adverse events.
Regulators then relied on Merck’s data to investigate reported concerns about autoimmune and other neurological disorders.
Merck, CDC cherry-picked Gardasil safety data
Tomljenović found that researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) relied on Merck’s data, which she said distorted data on rates of autoimmune disorders.
The CDC replicated Merck’s flawed methods in its own analysis, which concluded the shot was safe, The Defender reported.
Tomljenović also found that both Merck and the CDC cherry-picked vaccine injury data, which it used to claim the vaccine doesn’t cause serious neurological side effects in some recipients.
Court documents also showed that Merck knew its vaccine contained an additional adjuvant that was not disclosed to recipients and did not have regulatory approval.
Lee’s research identified billions of fragments of HPV DNA in the shots, which resulted from the manufacturing process. Those fragments act as a second adjuvant, making the shot more immunogenic than if the fragments were not present.
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Court documents showed that Merck deliberately preserved and retained the fragments in the final vaccine formulation, and Sing’s research showed that they could be linked to autoimmune conditions, Demasi reported.
The Gardasil HPV vaccine remains on the market, although sales have plummeted over the last year.
Merck is funding research to make the vaccine available to younger age groups and continues to push its HPV vaccination efforts across the world.
Related articles in The Defender
- Consultants Push HPV Vaccines for Infants, as Merck Tests Gardasil in Kids as Young as 4
- ‘Indefensible’: Merck Designed Gardasil Trials to Mask HPV Vaccine Harms
- Trial Alleging Merck Hid Dangers of HPV Vaccine Delayed Again
- Merck to Face California Jury as ‘Historic’ Gardasil HPV Vaccine Trial Gets Under Way
- Merck’s Call to Lower the Age for Gardasil HPV Vaccine ‘Just Another Marketing Ploy,’ Critic Says
- CDC Relied on Cherry-picked Data to Claim No Link Between Merck’s Gardasil Vaccine and POTS
