Things to know about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

President-elect Donald Trump ‘s plan to appoint Robert F. Kennedy Jr.to lead the Health and Human Services Department put a prominent vaccine skeptic at the head of the country’s extensive public health apparatus.

A scion of a famous Democratic dynasty, Kennedy made a name for himself as an environmental lawyer who successfully took on major corporations including DuPont and Monsanto.

But over the past two decades, he has increasingly devoted his energies to promoting vaccine claims that contradict the overwhelming consensus of scientists.

Trump wanted Kennedy to lead a massive cabinet agency that oversees everything from drug, vaccine and food safety to medical research and the social safety net programs Medicare and Medicaid. He said before the election that he would give Kennedy free rein on health care policy.

Here’s a look at Kennedy and the agency he’ll be tasked with leading:

Kennedy defies scientific consensus on vaccines and other issues

He took over the anti-vaccine group Children’s Health Defense and built it into a juggernaut during the pandemic. His activism helped him build a loyal following, which he has leveraged in his political pursuits.

Kennedy insists he is not anti-vaccine and claims he never told the public to avoid vaccination. But he has repeatedly made his opposition to vaccines clear. He said on a podcast “there is no vaccine that is safe and effective” and has urged people to resist CDC guidelines for when children should be vaccinated.

Although there are rare cases of people having serious reactions to vaccines, the billions of doses administered globally provide real evidence that they are safe. The World Health Organization says vaccines prevent as many as 5 million deaths each year.

He wants to eliminate liability protection for drug companies.

Even before Trump was elected, Kennedy said he would recommend water agencies stop adding fluoride to drinking water. Fluoride strengthens teeth and is considered one of the greatest public health successes of the last century.

He made a number of other claims not supported by science, such as questioning whether HIV causes AIDS and suggesting that antidepressants lead to school shootings.

Children’s Health Defense currently has a lawsuit pending against a number of news organizations, among them The Associated Press, accusing them of violating antitrust laws by taking steps to identify misinformation, including about COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines. Kennedy took a leave of absence from the group when he announced his presidential candidacy, but is listed as one of its attorneys in the lawsuit.

He wants an overhaul of the HHS staff

Kennedy has vowed to take a hard look at those who work for HHS and its agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

He is particularly focused on ending the “revolving door” of employees who previously worked for pharmaceutical companies or are leaving government service to work for that industry, his campaign communications manager Del Bigtree told the AP last month. Bigtree is also an anti-vaccine organizer.

He said he wants to fire 600 employees at the National Institutes of Health, which oversees vaccine research, and replace them with 600 new employees.

Many of the scientists and researchers who work at the NIH are not political appointees, making it harder to fire them abruptly. Nonetheless, Kennedy made the pledge at the Genius Network Annual Event in Scottsdale, Arizona, according to a video first obtained by ABC News.

“We need to act quickly and we want to have these people in place by January 20th, so 600 people will walk into offices at NIH on January 21st and 600 people will leave,” Kennedy said. according to a video of his remarks posted on YouTube.

He says the public health system is too focused on infectious diseases and wants to redirect resources toward a wide range of problems he characterizes as the chronic disease epidemic, including obesity, diabetes, autism and mental illness. He blames them on greedy corporations, including pharmaceutical companies that worry that healthy Americans would be bad for their bottom line, and food manufacturers that use harmful pesticides and additives.

Kennedy is a successor to a famous dynasty

Kennedy’s father was Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, brother of President John F. Kennedy. Both men were murdered.

Kennedy originally ran in the Democratic primary against President Joe Biden before deciding to launch an independent bid. He then suspended that campaign earlier this year and endorsed Trump, who has repeatedly praised Kennedy, promised him influence in a future administration and vowed to “Make America Healthy Again.”

The GOP base has eagerly welcomed Kennedy since joining forces with Trump, an embrace Kennedy has never received from the Democratic Party. His anti-vaccine activism has alienated him from a large part of his famous family.

He is known for running into dead animals – and a dead brain worm

Doctors found one dead parasite in Kennedy’s brain and high levels of mercury, which he said caused brain fog and memory problems.

He once fetched a bear that was killed by a motorist and left in New York’s Central Park with a bicycle on top, sparking a mystery that gripped the city in 2014. One photo showed Kennedy with his fingers in the bear’s bloody mouth, a fake grimace on his face and an apparent bloodstain on his trouser leg.

He refused to eat a dog after a friend shared a photo with Vanity Fair showing Kennedy dramatically preparing to take a bite of a charred animal; Kennedy said it was a goat.

And a federal law enforcement agency opened an investigation after Kennedy allegedly cut the head off a dead whale and took it home two decades ago. The National Marine Fisheries Service concluded the investigation a short time later.

Big changes may be in store for the FDA and drug manufacturers

Kennedy’s nomination is sure to be opposed by the pharmaceutical lobby in Washington, which relies on the predictability of the FDA’s science-based rules to bring new drugs to market.

Kennedy’s proposals for the agency only resemble those of previous Republican administrations, which have typically favored cutting regulations to speed up product approvals.

Instead, Kennedy has proposed barring drugmakers from advertising on television, a multibillion-dollar business that accounts for most of the industry’s marketing dollars. He has also proposed eliminating fees that drugmakers pay the FDA to review their products, allowing the agency to hire extra scientists to speed up its work. Replacing these funds would require billions in new appropriations from the federal budget.

In a post last month to the social media platform X, Kennedy vowed to end the FDA’s “aggressive crackdown” on a range of unproven therapies, including psychedelics and stem cells, as well as discredited COVID-era drugs like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine.

In recent interviews, Kennedy has also proposed clearing out “entire departments” at the FDA, including the one responsible for nutritional standards.

The nomination has distorted political allegiance

The Kennedy selection was condemned by public health officials and some congressional Democrats.

“Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is not remotely qualified for the role and should not be anywhere near the science-based agencies that protect our nutrition, food safety and health,” said Dr. Peter Lurie, chairman of the public health watchdog. group Center for Science in the public interest.

But it also won some bipartisan support.

“Finally someone to detox post-Fauci era,” Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, wrote on social media platform X, referring to Anthony Fauci, the former top public health official who has been demonized by people opposed to vaccines and the government’s response to COVID-19.

Jared Polis, the Democratic governor of Colorado, said he was “excited” about Kennedy’s appointment and said he would shake up HHS and the FDA.

“What I’m most optimistic about is tackling big pharma and corporate oligopolies to improve our health,” Polis wrote X. Facing backlash, he later added“Science must remain the cornerstone of our nation’s health policy.”