RFK in power at heart of Trump government in controversial health role

Americans who still wrap themselves in the romantic ‘Camelot’ myth of the Kennedys may soon have a genuine member of the clan back at the heart of government.

But there’s little romance about Donald Trump’s controversial choice as his health chief of Robert F Kennedy Jr, the eccentric nephew of former president John F Kennedy.

A vaccine-sceptic and conspiracy theorist, 70-year-old Kennedy’s bizarre past includes heroin addiction and a prank in which he dumped a dead bear cub in New York’s Central Park.

After Kennedy agreed to end his own third-party presidential bid in August and throw his support behind Trump, the latter promised to let him ‘go wild on health’ and on Thursday rewarded him with a powerful new role.

His nomination has provoked widespread horror and fears he would dangerously ignore mainstream science.

As Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Kennedy would oversee 13 agencies with an annual budget of nearly $2trillion (£1.58trillion), and authority over crucial areas such as health insurance, food and drugs regulation, infectious diseases and medical research.

Dr Richard Besser, former boss of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, called it ‘absolutely chilling’ and warned it ‘could have profound consequences for the health of people in America’.

Trump’s often bizarre and provocative cabinet nominations have stunned Washington, with critics complaining he is appointing ‘yes men’.

Traditionally, presidential appointments must be approved by the Senate, but Trump has pressured Republican Senators to bypass this process, taking extended breaks so that so-called ‘recess appointments’ can be made without the normal scrutiny.

RFK Jr, say his critics, needs some serious scrutiny.

The Harvard-educated son of Robert F Kennedy turned to drugs after struggling to cope with his father’s assassination during his 1968 presidential campaign. He was addicted to heroin for 14 years and his ex-wife Mary Richardson killed herself in 2012 after a long battle with drugs and alcohol. A father of six, he is now married to third wife actress Cheryl Hines, star of the TV comedy series Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Kennedy has been accused of being a ‘lifelong philanderer’ and, before her suicide, Mary Richardson reportedly discovered his diary for 2001 in which he had logged sexual encounters with 37 other women.

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Then there are the more surreal controversies his private life has yielded.

Kennedy revealed that he once found a dead bear cub by the side of the road during a hunting trip and put it in his car, intending to skin and eat it. Instead, he dumped it in Central Park alongside a bicycle to look like it had been hit by a cyclist, as he thought it would be ‘funny for people’.

Some health experts say some of Kennedy’s expressed priorities are entirely sensible, such as tackling America’s drug addiction and obesity crises, and rooting out corruption and inefficiency in the country’s bloated health sector.

However, his more extreme and unscientific views – particularly on vaccination, which he once compared to the Holocaust – and susceptibility to wild conspiracy theories have attracted widespread contempt. He has blamed thiomersal, a preservative used in vaccines, for causing autism, despite such a link being comprehensively debunked.

He has also suggested that AIDS may not in fact be caused by HIV and falsely linked anti-depressant drugs to mass shootings. Last year he sensationally claimed that Covid-19 was ‘ethnically targeted’ to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people.

Assuming Trump gets his appointment through, the return of a Kennedy to high office may need to be accompanied by a public health warning.