RFK Jr: How anti-vaccine misinformation has shaped his 'truth-teller' candidacy

America faces an election rematch in November that few voters are motivated by. As a result, independent candidates could have a bigger impact on this year's result than they have in decades, and none is making bigger waves than Robert F Kennedy Jr.

His ers see him as a courageous truth-teller, battling nefarious corporate powers. Yet the vaccine sceptic has a history of straying from the truth and spreading health information scientists say is false. Rachel Schraer investigates these two very different images.

About 20 years ago, Professor Paul Offit received a phone call.

"Robert F Kennedy Junior called me and he said that he needed my help," says the scientist, whose vaccine against rotavirus is estimated to save some two thousand lives a day in the developing world.

Mr Kennedy, a member of the famous political dynasty and nephew of former president John F Kennedy, told Prof Offit he was looking for information. He wanted to reassure parents who were worried about the effects of a mercury-based preservative called thimerosal, found in some vaccines.

Prof Offit confesses he was excited to be able to talk a Kennedy through the studies, which showed children exposed to thimerosal (not found in most US vaccines anyway since 2001) were no worse off than those who hadn't had exposure.

But a year or so later, Mr Kennedy wrote an article published in Rolling Stone magazine which repeated baseless claims that thimerosal was causing health problems. It also wrongly claimed the vaccine that Prof Offit was working on at the time contained this preservative, suggesting this had driven him to misrepresent the risks. The article was later retracted due to a large number of inaccuracies.

Despite these wrong claims, Mr Kennedy - now a presidential candidate - appeared on Joe Rogan's podcast last summer repeating his version of the story.

We ed Mr Kennedy's team but they did not comment on this specific allegation.

"I think he's remarkably dishonest," Prof Offit says.

You can listen to Trending: "The anti-vax candidate">Republicans have won control of both chambers of Congress, yielding Trump limited congressional oversight for at least 2 years.