New documents obtained by The Associated Press and The Guardian suggest that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. misrepresented the purpose of his 2019 visit to Samoa during his confirmation hearing last year. Kennedy had stated that the trip was unrelated to vaccines, but correspondence shows he requested to study the nation's measles vaccine following the deaths of two children who had received it.
During his confirmation process, which required support from some skeptical Republican lawmakers, Kennedy repeatedly assured Congress that he supported childhood vaccination and that his trip to Samoa had “nothing to do with vaccines.” He told Senator Ron Wyden, D-Ore., that he went to Samoa to introduce a medical informatics system to digitalize records and make health delivery more efficient. He made similar statements to Senator Edward Markey, D-Mass., asserting that his purpose for the trip had no connection to vaccines.
The Department of Health and Human Services stated in response to AP inquiries that the Samoa visit “was unrelated to vaccines.” The department added, “Any claim or insinuation based on these letters that Secretary Kennedy lied under oath or to Congress is not only false but outright defamatory.” Kennedy was not under oath during his confirmation hearing, though knowingly giving material false testimony to Congress can be a crime.
In a letter dated Jan. 20, 2019, addressed to then-Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, Kennedy, then chair of Children's Health Defense, a nonprofit known for anti-vaccine activism, expressed a desire to study Samoa's use of the MMR vaccine. He wrote that his team wanted to conduct a “detailed health informatics assessment” to evaluate whether issues with different vaccine lots may have caused the deaths of two children who had received a tainted MMR vaccine. The Samoan government had halted vaccinations for 10 months following the incident, during which time Children's Health Defense contacted the government.
The prime minister responded a month later, indicating Samoa could benefit from an independent health assessment of its MMR vaccines and welcomed a proposed visit from Kennedy's team, including a U.S. Embassy representative in his communication. Kennedy, his wife Cheryl Hines, and a Children's Health Defense colleague visited Samoa in May and June 2019, by which time vaccinations had resumed and the Samoan health official had attributed the children's deaths to human error rather than vaccine issues.
Reports from the AP and The Guardian previously indicated that Kennedy met with anti-vaccine activists during his trip, some of whom helped arrange the visit. Months after Kennedy's departure, Samoa experienced a measles outbreak that sickened thousands. Public health experts stated that anti-vaccine activists, some of whom they claim were emboldened by Kennedy’s visit, hindered efforts to combat the outbreak. State Department and UNICEF officials privately discussed that the trip was vaccine-related, prompting some Democratic politicians to accuse Kennedy of lying or misleading the Senate.
Kennedy ultimately secured confirmation from the Senate with a 52-48 vote, partly due to commitments made to Senator Bill Cassidy, R-La., who leads the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Cassidy had advocated for vaccination and stated that Kennedy pledged to maintain federal vaccine policies. However, Cassidy later acknowledged that his trust in Kennedy was broken, stating that "The commitments that were made to me have been violated."