Robert F Kennedy Junior will perhaps be the most difficult of Donald Trump’s picks to get past the nomination process. But if the president-elect gets his way, an anti-vaxxer will become the top health official in the United States.
First came Pete Hegseth, the Fox News host as defence secretary. Then Tulsi Gabbard, an apparent Vladimir Putin and Bashar al Assad sympathiser as intelligence chief.
Then came Matt Gaetz, under active investigation for allegedly sex trafficking a 17-year-old, as attorney general, the most powerful lawyer in the United States.
Thursday afternoon brought the nomination of Robert F Kennedy Junior, arguably the most prolific peddler of anti-vax conspiracy theories in the nation, as health secretary.
Not a shock, perhaps, given what had gone before. But in terms of upsetting the apple cart, it’s right there.
Kennedy is best known in the UK for being the son of Robert Kennedy, part of the great Kennedy political dynasty.
But on this side of the Atlantic, he’s gained a reputation for promoting baseless theories about vaccines being dangerous.
« I do believe no vaccine is safe and effective », he said, while also linking childhood vaccines and autism.
Decades of research by the medical and scientific community has found no link between vaccines and autism.
