Kennedy, Robert F., Jr., 1954-

Robert Francis Kennedy Jr. (born January 17, 1954), also known by his initials RFK Jr., is an American politician, environmental lawyer, anti-vaccine activist, and conspiracy theorist. In 2024, he was announced as the presumptive nominee for United States Secretary of Health and Human Services in President-elect Donald Trump's second cabinet. A member of the Kennedy family, he is a son of U.S. attorney general and senator Robert F. Kennedy and a nephew of U.S. president John F. Kennedy and Senator Ted Kennedy. After growing up in the Washington, D.C. area and Massachusetts, Kennedy graduated from Harvard University and the University of Virginia School of Law. He began his career as an assistant district attorney in New York City. In the mid-1980s, he joined two nonprofits focused on environmental protection, Riverkeeper and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). At both organizations, Kennedy won legal battles against large corporate polluters. He became an adjunct professor of environmental law at Pace University School of Law in 1986. In 1987, Kennedy founded Pace's Environmental Litigation Clinic, and held the positions of supervising attorney and co-director there until 2017. He founded the nonprofit environmental group Waterkeeper Alliance in 1999, serving as the president of its board until 2020. He was on the ballot in some states as an independent candidate in the 2024 United States presidential election. Since 2005, Kennedy has promoted vaccine misinformation and public-health conspiracy theories, including the scientifically disproved claim of a causal link between vaccines and autism. The preservative Kennedy bases his claims on has not been used in childhood vaccines since 2001. He is the chairman and founder of Children's Health Defense, an anti-vaccine advocacy group and proponent of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation.