Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has submitted the necessary paperwork to run as a Democrat for US president in 2024.
The 69-year-old is the nephew of President John F. Kennedy and the son of killed Senator Robert F. Kennedy.John E. Sullivan, the campaign treasurer for the environmental attorney, confirmed the filing on Wednesday.
Mr. Kennedy is a vocal opponent of vaccinations. In 2021, Instagram deleted his account after discovering that it had "repeatedly shared disproved claims."
While not yet formally announcing his candidature, President Joseph Biden has said he will seek re-election.
His campaign was originally scheduled to begin in early April, but according to his advisers, that date has changed.
His formal announcement of a run is anticipated to come in the first half of the summer, according to CBS News, the BBC's US partner.Another Democrat, Marianne Williamson, entered the campaign for president last month.
On the Republican side, Donald Trump was the first to announce his candidature; others have since joined him, including Nikki Haley, a former US ambassador to the UN.
Kennedy said on Twitter in March that he was thinking about running for president.
At the time, he declared: "If I run, ending the corrupt fusion of governmental and corporate power that has destroyed our economy, destroyed the middle class, poisoned our children, and robbed us of our values and liberties will be my first priority."
In March, Mr. Kennedy told a gathering in New Hampshire that he had "passed the toughest hurdle": his wife's approval of the campaign.
Mr. Kennedy, who was a co-founder of an environmental law company, received praise for his advocacy on behalf of clean water concerns, notably his work to clean up the Hudson River in New York.
His anti-vaccine views, however, have been around for a while and have drawn a lot of criticism, even from members of his own family. On the subject, Kerry Kennedy, his sister, referred to him as "extremely dangerous" in 2021.
Three further family members criticised Robert Kennedy's anti-vaccine stance in an opinion piece published in Politico in 2019.
His niece Maeve Kennedy McKean, brother Joseph P. Kennedy II, and sister Kathleen Kennedy Townsend all criticised him for holding "tragically erroneous" views that have "deadly implications."
Children's Health Defense, an anti-vaccine organisation started by Mr. Kennedy, had accounts deleted from Facebook and Instagram in 2022 for "repeatedly" breaking the terms of service about spreading false information about medicine.
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