Kennedy is a notable environmental lawyer, anti-vaccine activist, and former presidential candidate turned Donald Trump ally.
Robert F Kennedy Jr has been confirmed to lead the US health department, putting him in charge of one of the world’s largest health agencies.
Kennedy – a vaccine sceptic, environmental lawyer, former presidential candidate, and member of a famous American political family – has been one of US President Donald Trump’s most contested nominees for key leadership positions.
The US Senate narrowly approved his appointment on Thursday, with Kennedy winning support from all Republicans but one and no Democrats or independents.
With a yearly budget of more than $1.8 trillion (€1.7 trillion), the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has huge sway over the country’s healthcare system, including medical research, public health programmes, medical insurance, and drug regulation.
As HHS secretary, 71-year-old Kennedy has promised to “Make America Healthy Again” by overhauling the US public health system, improving the food supply, prioritising chronic diseases, banning fluoride in drinking water, and supporting research into psychedelic therapies.
But who exactly is he – and what makes him so controversial?
Scion of the Kennedy dynasty
RFK Jr is the son of Robert Kennedy – a US senator, attorney general, and presidential candidate – and the nephew of former US President John F Kennedy. Both men were influential in the Democratic Party, and both were assassinated.
Kennedy initially challenged former US President Joe Biden for the 2024 Democratic nomination before running as an independent.
He eventually suspended his bid and endorsed Trump, a sharp turn given he previously called the president “utterly incurious, superficial and ultimately a buffoon” in a 2018 opinion piece.
Kennedy has broken with some family members in recent years over his support for Trump and his anti-vaccine activism. Ahead of his HHS confirmation hearings, a cousin and former US diplomat sent a letter to lawmakers calling Kennedy a “predator”.
Environmental crusader
Kennedy spent much of his career as an environmental lawyer who successfully took on corporations like Monsanto – the original maker of the pesticide RoundUp – and forced the closure of a New York landfill that was contaminating the water supply.
As the longtime head of a clean water nonprofit, Kennedy helped defeat dam projects in Chile and Peru and sued sewage treatment plants to make them comply with clean water laws.
RFK Jr previously criticised policies from both Biden and the first Trump administration that he said would harm the environment or favour fossil fuels.
Vaccine and science sceptic
For years, Kennedy led the nonprofit Children’s Health Defense, which was named one of the top spreaders of anti-vaccine advertisements on Facebook in 2019.
The group also came under fire for boosting anti-vaccine narratives in American Samoa months before a measles outbreak killed dozens of people in 2019.
Kennedy stepped down as chair of the Children’s Health Defense in December.
During his confirmation hearings, RFK Jr said he does not oppose vaccines, will not undermine confidence in the jabs as HHS secretary, and simply wants more data on their safety and impact.
“News reports have claimed that I’m anti-vaccine and anti-industry,” Kennedy said. “I am neither. I’m pro-safety. I’m pro-good science”.
However, he has previously claimed that there is “no vaccine that is safe and effective”, amplified debunked claims linking vaccines to autism, and petitioned the US medicines regulator to revoke authorisation for COVID-19 vaccines during the pandemic.
He has also cast doubt on other scientific issues, for example questioning whether HIV causes AIDS and suggesting that antidepressants lead to a rise in school shootings.
During the hearings, Democratic lawmakers pressed Kennedy on potential conflicts of interest due to his involvement in vaccine-related lawsuits, which he could influence as HHS secretary.
He said he would sign over his financial stake in lawsuits against the maker of the HPV vaccine Gardasil to an adult son.
Eccentric family man
Last year, Kennedy told The New York Times that doctors had found a dead parasitic worm in his brain that had caused memory loss and brain fog in 2010.
He said that in 2014, he picked up a bear that had been killed by a driver and deposited it in New York City’s Central Park as a prank.
And he was briefly investigated by US federal law enforcement in 2024 after allegations arose that he had cut off the head of a dead whale and brought it home two decades earlier, an episode his daughter, who was 6 at the time, later recalled as “just normal day-to-day stuff for us”.
He is married to the actress Cheryl Hines and had six children with his first two wives.
