president-elect Donald Trump plan to appoint Robert F. Kennedy Jr.to lead the Health and Human Services Department post a prominent vaccine skeptic at the helm of the country’s vast public health apparatus.

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

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

Trump would let Kennedy lead a major Cabinet agency that oversees everything from the safety of drugs, vaccines and food to medical research and the social safety net programs Medicare and Medicaid. He said before the election that he would give Kennedy a free hand on health policy.

Here’s a look at Kennedy and the agency he will have to lead:

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 has helped him build a loyal following that he uses in his political activities.

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

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

He wants to abolish liability protection for pharmaceutical 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 past century.

He made a number of other claims that were not supported by science, such as 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, including The Associated Press, accusing them of violating antitrust laws by taking action to identify misinformation, including about COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines. Kennedy parted ways with the group when he announced his run for president, but is listed as one of the lawyers in the lawsuit.

He wants to overhaul HHS staffing

Kennedy has pledged to take a serious 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 have previously worked for pharmaceutical companies or left 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 lay off 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 working at the NIH are not political appointees, which makes abruptly firing them more difficult. Nevertheless, Kennedy made the pledge at the Genius Network Annual Event in Scottsdale, Arizona, according to a video first obtained by ABC News.

“We have to move quickly and we want to have those people on the ground by January 20 so that on January 21 we have 600 people walking into the NIH offices and 600 people leaving,” Kennedy said. according to a video of his comments on YouTube.

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

Kennedy is a descendant of 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 primaries against President Joe Biden before deciding to make 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 pledged to “make America healthy again.”

The Republican base has eagerly welcomed Kennedy since he joined forces with Trump, an embrace Kennedy never received from the Democratic Party. His anti-vaccination activism has done just that alienated him of much of his famous family.

He is known for his run-ins with dead animals – and a dead brain worm

Doctors found A dead parasitic worm in Kennedy’s brain and high mercury levels that he said caused brain fog and memory problems.

He agrees picked up a bear who was killed by a motorist and left with a bicycle on top in New York’s Central Park, creating a mystery that captivated the city in 2014. One photo showed Kennedy with his fingers in the bear’s bloody mouth, a fake grimace on his face and a clear bloodstain on his pant leg.

He denied eating a dog after a friend shared a photo with Vanity Fair that showed 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 off the head of a dead whale and brought it home twenty years ago. The National Marine Fisheries Service ended the investigation a short time later.

Big changes could be in store for the FDA and drug makers

Kennedy’s nomination will undoubtedly face resistance from 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 bear little resemblance to those of previous Republican administrations, which typically favored cutting regulations to speed product approvals.

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

In a post last month on the social media platform hydroxychloroquine.

In recent interviews, Kennedy has also suggested cleaning up “entire departments” at the FDA, including the one responsible for nutritional standards.

The nomination has disrupted political loyalty

The Kennedy choice was condemned by public health officials and some Democrats in Congress.

“Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is not at all 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 received some bipartisan support.

“Finally someone detoxing the place after the Fauci era,” Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, wrote on the social media platform

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

“What I am most optimistic about is taking on big pharmaceutical companies and the big business oligopoly to improve our health,” Polis says. wrote on X. Facing backlash, he added later“Science must remain THE cornerstone of our country’s health policy.”