NEW YORK - A prominent activist and member of the famed Kennedy family was officially removed from Instagram on Wednesday (Feb. 10) for posting false coronavirus and/or vaccine claims.

According to ABC 7, the popular social media site removed Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s account and released a statement, by way of a spokesperson for Facebook, which owns Instagram.

The statement said, "We removed this account for repeatedly sharing debunked claims about the coronavirus or vaccines."

Kennedy, the son of late former US Attorney General, US Senator and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, has repeatedly spoken out against vaccines and lobbied Congress to give parents exemptions from state requirements that mandate they vaccinate their children.

Kennedy, a Democrat, downplays his anti-vaccine views and says he approves of safe vaccines, noting that all of his children have been vaccinated.

ABC 7 says Kennedy's Facebook page, with more than 300,000 followers, was still active at the time of publication. The company spokesperson said there were no plans to take down that page "at this time."

The news outlet reports that Children's Health Defense, the nonprofit group Kennedy chairs that expresses skepticism about the health benefits of vaccines, said it could not immediately comment on Instagram's actions.

For years, Facebook has aimed to crack down on vaccine misinformation, and announced yet another effort to do so earlier this week.

On Monday, the company announced several initiatives it expects to implement to better combat vaccine misinformation, including making it harder to find accounts through searches on Facebook-owned Instagram that discourage people from getting vaccinated.

According to ABC 7, the announcement comes a day after CNN Business reported that Instagram continued to prominently feature anti-vaxxer accounts in its search results, while Facebook groups railing against vaccines remained easy to find. The findings raised concerns among public health experts, given the United States is in the midst of its largest vaccine rollout ever to address the coronavirus pandemic.