Donald Trump is set to hand over the reigns of the US Department of Health and Human Services to Robert F. Kennedy Jr, an anti-vaxxer who claims part of his brain was eaten by a worm.

Trump made the announcement on Thursday (US), and said he expected Kennedy to “do some unbelievable things” as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

Kennedy, an environmental lawyer and nephew of 35th US President John F. Kennedy, had initially run for president before he dropped out in August and endorsed Trump in exchange for a role in the latter’s administration.

For those unfamiliar with the outspoken scion of Democrat royalty, here are some quick facts to get up to speed.

Racially-targeted Covid conspiracy theory

In July, Kennedy was filmed telling fellow diners at a dinner party that “Covid-19 is targeted to attack caucasians and black people”.

He further claimed “the people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese”.

The US “put hundreds of millions of dollars into ethnically targeted microbes”, Kennedy said, and labs in Ukraine collected Russian and Chinese DNA to “target people by race”.

After his comments sparked outrage, Kennedy called reports of his remarks “mistaken” and said he had “never, ever suggested that the Covid-19 virus was targeted to spare Jews”.

But he stood by his claim that the US, along with other governments, “are developing ethnically targeted bioweapons and that a 2021 study of the COVID-19 virus shows that COVID-19 appears to disproportionately affect certain races”.

Vaccine critic

Kennedy is a long-time anti-vaccine activist, and has been criticised for spreading misinformation and making false claims.

One of his main claims is that vaccines cause autism, despite multiple accredited health organisations around the world having found no link.

He opposed Covid vaccine mandates, has lobbied against and sued over vaccine policies, and in a 2021 study of verified Twitter accounts, was found to be the top “superspreader” of vaccine misinformation on the social media platform.

Kennedy has insisted he “never told the public to avoid vaccination” – but has done so publicly many times.

For example, in a 2021 podcast he said: “I see somebody on a hiking trail carrying a little baby and I say to him, better not get them vaccinated.”

He also reportedly wants to eliminate liability protections for drug companies.

Anti-fluoride water

Fluoride is commonly added to public water in the US to prevent tooth decay.

But Kennedy has labelled fluoride “an industrial waste associated with arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neuro-developmental disorders, and thyroid disease”.

He indicated the upcoming Trump administration would advise the nation to remove fluoride from public water supplies.

Research by the US National Toxicology program has found higher levels of fluoride exposure, such as drinking water containing more than 1.5 milligrams of fluoride per litre (almost twice the recommended level), were associated with a lower IQ in children.

Massive staff turnover

Kennedy wants to fire 600 employees at the National Institutes of Health, which oversees vaccine research, and replace them with 600 new employees by January 21.

In particular, he wants to target employees who have previously worked for pharmaceutical companies or left government service to work for that industry.

He has also suggested clearing out “entire departments” at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), including the one responsible for nutrition standards.

Restrictions for pharmaceutical companies

Kennedy has suggested banning pharmaceuticals from advertising on TV due to concerns about their influence on the news coverage of health issues.

He’s also proposed eliminating fees that drugmakers pay the FDA to review their products, but has not said how Congress would make up the difference from the billions of dollars in fees if they were cut.

Kennedy wants Medicare to cover “clean foods” and exercise, and has accused the FDA of actively suppressing anything “that advances human health and can’t be patented” by pharmaceutical companies.

This includes treatments like psychedelics, with MDMA recently  rejected as treatment for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and products like raw milk, which officials have stepped up warnings against consuming amid a widespread bird flu outbreak on American dairy farms this year.

Brain worm

In a 2012 deposition, Kennedy said after experiencing memory loss and mental fogginess in 2010 a doctor suggested he may have had a dead parasite in his brain.

The doctor believed that an abnormality on Kennedy’s brain scans “was caused by a worm that got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died,” he said.

“I have cognitive problems, clearly,” he said in the 2012 deposition.

“I have short-term memory loss, and I have longer-term memory loss that affects me.”

He later told The New York Times that he had since recovered from the memory loss and fogginess and had no after-effects from the parasite, which he said had not required treatment.

His campaign declined to provide medical records.

Dumped dead bear cub

During his run as presidential candidate, Kennedy made headlines by admitting that a decade prior, he had retrieved a bear carcass killed by a motorist and left it in New York’s Central Park with a bicycle on top.

He said he initially intended to skin the bear and put the meat in his refrigerator, but dinner plans and a scheduled trip to the airport meant the carcass would be in his car too long; after some drinks his friends thought it would be “amusing for whoever found it” to set the bear up in a park with one of his old bicycles.

Kennedy later told reporters he had picked up roadkill his “whole life” and has a “freezer full of it”. His spokesperson clarified Kennedy used the meat to feed his ravens.

This was not Kennedy’s only strange interaction with dead wildlife.

In September, authorities opened an investigation into Kennedy after a 2012 interview of his daughter resurfaced, during which she recalled Kennedy cutting off the head of a dead whale and taking it home strapped to the roof of his car.

“Every time we accelerated on the highway, whale juice would pour into the windows of the car, and it was the rankest thing on the planet,” Kathleen Kennedy said.

“We all had plastic bags over our heads with mouth holes cut out, and people on the highway were giving us the finger, but that was just normal day-to-day stuff for us.”

The investigation was closed with no federal charges in October after authorities “determined the allegation to be unfounded”.

Backlash

Kennedy’s appointment as US Health Secretary has raised some alarm, with consumer rights think tank Public Citizen co-president Robert Weissman labelling Kennedy “a clear and present danger to the nation’s health”.

Trump has previously said he would let Kennedy “go wild on health”.

“[Kennedy] shouldn’t be allowed in the building at the Department of Health and Human Services, let alone be placed in charge of the nation’s public health agency,” Weissman said.

Democrats have labelled Kennedy as “dangerous” and “unqualified”.

Flashback to when RFK Jr.’s anti-vaccine activism led to a measles outbreak in Samoa that resulted in the death of 83 people, mostly children. pic.twitter.com/YYCOlE2Cnj https://t.co/mbAv2XoRft

— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) November 14, 2024

On the other side of the fence, several Republican praised Trump’s pick, calling Kennedy “brilliant” and a “courageous truth-teller”.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr – the new Secretary of Health and Human Services

What an upgrade 🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/4OgjYvAsd5

— John (@johnEiid) November 14, 2024

Despite Kennedy’s grand visions for changes to the Department of Health and Human Services and the FDA, he might not be able to action his plans.

“It is difficult for any one person to drive seismic change within the context of a law-constrained bureaucracy such as the FDA,” former FDA chief counsel Dan Troy told Fortune.

“One cannot just sit in the White House and issue pronouncements and expect that policy is going to change.”