President-elect Donald Trump said Thursday that he has targeted vaccine skeptic and conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will nominate to serve as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

If the Senate confirms Kennedy, the former independent presidential candidate would lead an expanded department responsible for the massive health care programs Medicare and Medicaid, the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

HHS’s decisions on expedited treatment are having a major impact on the American health care system.

Kennedy, 70, is the son of Robert F. Kennedy, the late U.S. attorney general and Democratic senator from New York, who was killed by a gunman in Los Angeles in 1968 while running for president. He is the cousin of former President John Kennedy who was assassinated in 1963.

Trump said in October that if elected, he would let Kennedy “go wild on health.”

“I am very pleased to welcome Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be announced as Secretary of Health and Human Services of the United States,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social site on Thursday.

“For too long, Americans have been crushed by the food industrial complex and pharmaceutical companies that have engaged in deception, disinformation and disinformation when it comes to public health,” Trump wrote.

“The safety and health of all Americans is the most important role of any government, and HHS will play a major role in helping ensure everyone is protected from harmful chemicals, pollutants, pesticides, pharmaceuticals and food additives that have contributed to the overwhelming health crisis in this country.”

Kennedy told NBC News in a recent interview that Trump has said he wants Kennedy to “clean up the corruption” at federal health agencies, return those agencies to science-based policies and “make America healthy again.” Kennedy said that “there are entire departments, like the food division of the FDA, that need to go.”

Shares of vaccine makers fell earlier Thursday after reports that Trump would tap Kennedy for the HHS post.

Kennedy suggested last year that the Covid-19 virus, which the CDC played a major role in combating, was designed to “attack Caucasians and Black people” and be less likely to harm “Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese” people .

He previously promoted theories that autism was linked to childhood vaccines, a link that has been refuted.

Kennedy angered many of his siblings by endorsing Trump in August after abandoning his long-short run for president.

Trump’s choice of Kennedy came a day after Republican President-elect appointed Florida Representative Matt Gaetz as attorney general.

Gaetz’s selection immediately sparked controversy, largely due to the fact that the Justice Department, which he would lead as AG, had previously investigated him for possible sex trafficking of a 17-year-old girl. Gaetz resigned from Congress on Thursday, removing him from the jurisdiction of the House Ethics Committee, but a number of Republican senators have called on that panel to release a report on its investigation of the former lawmaker.

Kennedy reportedly suggested last week that he would fire and replace 600 NIH employees.

His “Make America Healthy” website has solicited suggestions from the public for Trump to fill more than 4,000 positions in the federal government.

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