Long before the COVID-19 pandemic, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was building up a following with his anti-vaccine nonprofit group, Children’s Health Defense, and becoming one of the world’s most influential spreaders of fear and distrust around vaccines.

President-elect Donald Trump has appointed Robert F Kennedy Jr, an environmental advocate and vaccine sceptic, to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

WASHINGTON—President-elect Donald Trump said he would nominate environmental lawyer and vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr.to serve as health and human services secretary, putting a noted critic of U.S. public policy atop the country’s vast health bureaucracy.