President-elect Donald Trump said Thursday that he will nominate vaccine skeptic and conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of the Health and Human Services Department.
If the Senate approves Kennedy, the former independent presidential candidate will lead a sprawling department responsible for the huge Medicare and Medicaid health coverage programs, the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
HHS’ decisions on spending and policies have major effects on the U.S. health-care system and related businesses.
Kennedy, 70, is the son of Robert F. Kennedy, the late U.S. attorney general and Democratic senator from New York who was assassinated in 1968 by a gunman in Los Angeles as he ran for president. He is the nephew 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 thrilled …