Long before the COVID-19 pandemic, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was building up a following with his anti-vaccine nonprofit group, Children’s Health Defense, and became one of the world’s most influential spreaders of fear and distrust around vaccines.

U.S. president-elect Donald Trump will nominate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, putting the anti-vaccine activist in charge of a massive agency that oversees everything from drug,