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 becoming one of the world’s most influential spreaders of fear and distrust around vaccines.

President-elect Donald Trump is nominating anti-vaccine activist and former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, a sprawling bureaucracy with control over a wide range of health and drug-related policies.

NEW YORK — President-elect Donald Trump is expected to nominate anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, putting him in charge of a massive agency that oversees everything from drug, vaccine and food safety to medical research and the social safety net programs Medicare and Medicaid.