Trump picks anti-vaxxer Robert F Kennedy Jr to lead health department

US president-elect Donald Trump has nominated anti-vaccine Robert F Kennedy Jr, who has repeatedly expounded health-related conspiracy theories, as his new health secretary.

Kennedy, who is the nephew of assassinated Democratic president John F Kennedy and the son of the slain attorney general Bobby, ran in the US election as an independent candidate before dropping out in August and pledging his support for Republican nominee Trump.

Since winning the election, Trump has nominated key allies for posts in his forthcoming administration, including Elon Musk in a new efficiency role, “anti-woke” Fox News presenter Pete Hegseth as defence secretary, anti-LGBTQ+ governor Kristi Noem as the security of homeland security and, possibly most controversially, far-right US politician Matt Gaetz as attorney general, who until recently was under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for alleged sexual misconduct and illicit drug use.

Trump had previously hinted at a “big role” for Robert F Kennedy Jr.

If approved by the senate, Kennedy would be responsible for overseeing various agencies and bodies such as the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

On Thursday (14 November), at a gala at his Mar-a-Lago retreat in Florida, Trump addressed Kennedy directly, saying: “We want you to come up with things… and ideas… and what you’ve been talking about for a long time. I think you’re going to do some unbelievable things. Nobody’s going to be able to do it like you.”

Kennedy would return the various agencies to “the traditions of gold-standard scientific research, and beacons of transparency, to end the chronic disease epidemic, and [in a nod to his own campaign slogan] Make America Great and Healthy Again”, Trump went on to write on social media.

“For too long, Americans have been crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception, misinformation and disinformation when it comes to public health,” Trump claimed. “The safety and health of all Americans is the most important role of any administration.”

Kennedy is a controversial pick, given his scepticism over vaccines. More than once, he has repeated debunked claims that certain jabs can cause autism in children, and during the COVID-19 pandemic called the CDC a “sock puppet for Moderna and Pfizer”. He has even compared US vaccine requirements to the actions of Nazi Germany.

He has also widely claimed that children were being turned trans through chemical exposure and that 100 per cent of the “first thousand” people to die during the Aids epidemic “were addicted to poppers” and who were “part of a gay lifestyle where they were burning the candle at both ends [and] taking a lot of injectable drugs”.

Imran Ahmed, the chief executive of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, told Sky News in 2022 that Kennedy was using the famous family name to give credence to his anti-vax beliefs.

“He’s taken advantage of that name to draw in people from both sides of the political aisle of the political spectrum,” Ahmed claimed. “And what he’s been able to do is soften the messaging, bring some sophistication to the messaging, which is just old-fashioned nonsense that vaccines harm you, or they cause other diseases.”

But Kennedy has previously said: “I’ve never been anti-vaccine. If vaccines are working for somebody, I’m not going to take them away.

“People ought to have choice, and that choice ought to be informed by the best information, so I’m going to make sure scientific safety studies and efficacy studies are out there and people can make individual assessments about whether that product is going to be good for them.”

However, even Kennedy’s own brothers and sisters hit out at his support of Trump, calling it a “betrayal” and a “sad end to a sad story”. RFK Jnr was 14 years old when his father was assassinated in Los Angeles in 1968, while campaigning for the presidency.

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