The secret reasons behind RFK Jr.'s health obsession revealed, as Trump taps him to oversee America's well-being

Jerry Oppenheimer is a New York Times bestselling author whose biographies include 'Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the Dark Side of the Dream.'  

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is likely to be the next Health and Human Services Secretary, feared for his health for years due to his horrific heroin addiction and obsessive sexual promiscuity, insiders have revealed.

'Bobby constantly feared he'd wind up with sexually transmitted diseases because of all the women he was sleeping with during his marriages,' one close source told DailyMail.com.

'He was always getting himself checked out to make sure he hadn't come down with something.'

Meanwhile, Kennedy always feared he was living on the edge when he was doing hard drugs, especially heroin.

'At one time, he was even scoring the deadly s**t from sketchy dealers in Harlem, putting his life at even greater risk.

'It's a wonder he's alive today, and ironic that he's nominated to oversee better health for Americans.'

Sources told DailyMail.com that Kennedy, 70, who, if confirmed, will control a department with some 80,000 employees, feared his past chronic heroin use, which resulted in an arrest for possession, would have 'severe consequences', said the source.

'Bobby constantly was worried that he'd get blood viruses like hepatitis B and C.

'Maybe he did.'

If confirmed, Kennedy would become the first member of the once-powerful Kennedy dynasty to be a member of a presidential cabinet since his father was attorney general under his brother, John F. Kennedy.

It would be his second job in government – his first, an assistant DA in Manhattan, lasted just a year due to his drug addiction.

He earned a law degree from the University of Virginia but failed the bar exam. He only got the job through powerful family connections.

But working in the City that Never Sleeps had too many temptations – one being the easy availability of his favorite drug, heroin, which he allegedly began scoring, disguised as a street person, in a boarded-up slum building that was a notorious Harlem shooting gallery.

At the DA's office, colleagues suspected he was coming to work high and 'seemed incoherent'.

As one source told DailyMail.com: 'He was so f***ed up. It was tragic. We feared it had to end badly.'

Meanwhile, his first wife, Emily Black, also an attorney in New York, was 'going through hell,' regarding his addiction, a close associate said.

When a friend was busted for drugs, Kennedy took a leave from the DA's office in an unsuccessful bid to get himself clean.

He flew to Rapid City, South Dakota, where longtime friend Bill Walsh had promised to help him out. But passengers saw the condition he was in – 'white as a sheep, cold as an ice cube' with loss of muscle control and a weak pulse – and police were alerted.

His luggage was searched and heroin was found.

He was arrested and charged with possession of about a fifth of a gram of heroin found in his carry-on bag, a felony in South Dakota punishable by two years in prison with a $2,000 fine.

He served two years of probation instead, along with 1,500 hours of community service.

Several days after his overdose Kennedy – who was expelled from two boarding schools as a teen due to drug use and other bad behavior – was admitted to a New Jersey hospital known for rehab and psychiatric treatment.

'I have admitted myself to the hospital for the treatment of a drug problem. I am determined to beat this problem,' he said at the time.

'I deeply regret the pain which this situation will bring to my family and to so many Americans who admire my parents and the Kennedy family.'

In the hospital, where he stayed for five months, he was given Interferon, sometimes used to treat the hepatitis C virus caused by intravenous drug use.

Besides his drug addiction, RFK Jr. had a sexual obsession.

His diary, which became public in 2013, listed his many illicit sexual relationships. In one day alone in 2001, he wrote that he had three separate sexual encounters.

That same month, one woman's name was mentioned in the diary 22 times, on 13 consecutive days.

But Kennedy claimed he was the one who was seduced – or as he called it, 'mugged'.

He once noted, 'So I've been looking for ways to screw up. I'm like Adam and live in Eden, and I can have everything but the fruit.

'But the fruit is all I want.'

As a close source said, 'Bobby pursued women risking venereal diseases, even AIDS, But control was not his thing.

Besides the guilt, avoiding STDs was always on his mind.'

His health issues related to drugs became public for the first time in London in the late 1970s, when the Fleet Street press reported that he was having 'health problems'.

At the time, he was studying for a research degree in international relations at the prestigious London School of Economics.

One news account had the headline, 'Worry for Bohemian Bobby,' and described him as 'being very thin,' noting that he had 'been ill for some weeks now. The exact nature of his malady is not clear.'

The story's author had arranged to meet with him for an interview, but Kennedy, too ill, canceled.

As the reporter noted, 'It was very difficult to make any sense of what he was saying...He is a charming and serious young man, but his bohemian mode of life must now be a source of worry.

'Bobby seemed destined for a career in politics. But that does not seem very likely at the moment.'

It soon surfaced that a group of young women, who dubbed themselves 'Bobby sitters' had been 'keeping a vigil because of his health' at his apartment in London.

In the wake of the reports, Kennedy, wearing a beat-up jacket and ragged jeans, told the press, 'Take it from me, it's all a load of bulls**t.'

On his return to the U.S., he was in Alabama visiting friends when, apparently stoned, he fell off a pier into shallow water, suffering neck and back pains, and was hospitalized in Mobile.

As he aged, the nominated health czar, who has promised along with President-elect Trump to Make America Healthy Again, has had several health issues.

In a 2012 deposition, he acknowledged that what was believed to have been a brain tumor was actually 'a worm that got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died'.

Likely as a result, he has suffered from memory loss, a problem he claims that has since gone away.

He has also suffered from the heartbeat abnormality of atrial fibrillation which can be fatal. He has reportedly been hospitalized for it at least four times.

Today, his most audible and visible issues involve his voice and his ripped body, that of a decade-younger weightlifter.

He suffers from a rare and chronic neurological voice disorder, spasmodic dysphonia – first diagnosed when he was 42 – that makes him sound like a raspy frog, and results in involuntary spasms of the muscles that open and close the vocal cords.

According to experts, the condition is known to be neurological.

When photos surfaced of a chiseled Kennedy with a hugely muscled body, working out at Gold's Gym in Venice, California, near where he lives with his third wife, Curb Your Enthusiasm actress Cheryl Hines, some thought the visual was a joke meme.

According to reports, there was speculation that he was on steroids. But Kennedy revealed that he uses testosterone replacement therapy (TRT). According to the health czar-hopeful, such therapy promotes a healthy old age and ripped muscle mass.

TRT is prescribed by the medical community to treat low testosterone – the symptoms of which ironically include low libido.