RFK Jr. said a Samoa trip had nothing to do with vaccines. New documents
refute that
[August 28, 2026]
By ALI SWENSON
NEW YORK (AP) — Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. repeatedly told
lawmakers who held the key to his confirmation last year that a 2019
visit to Samoa before a deadly measles outbreak had “nothing to do with
vaccines.”New documents obtained by The Associated Press and The
Guardian refute that testimony.
Kennedy, then a prominent anti-vaccine activist, preceded the visit with
a letter to the Samoan prime minister requesting to study the Pacific
island nation’s measles, mumps and rubella vaccines after the deaths of
two children who had received them. In the letter, he used the words
vaccine or vaccination eight times.
The letter raises questions about how truthful Kennedy was in testimony
before Congress. During an arduous confirmation process where he needed
the support of some skeptical Republican lawmakers to advance, Kennedy
also pledged to maintain vaccine policies that, once in office, he moved
to change.
“I am writing this letter to you in the hope that we might be helpful to
the people of your great nation,” Kennedy wrote, adding that he believed
the deaths of the two children could have resulted from manufacturing
issues.
“I would propose my team conduct detailed health informatics assessment
in Samoa of what happened with your MMR vaccines,” he continued.
The Department of Health and Human Services said in response to
questions from the AP that the Samoa visit “was unrelated to vaccines.”
“Any claim or insinuation based on these letters that Secretary Kennedy
lied under oath or to Congress is not only false but outright
defamatory,” the department said in a statement. Kennedy was not under
oath during his confirmation hearing. Knowingly giving material false
testimony to Congress is a crime that carries a possible prison sentence
regardless of whether a person is under oath, though it is rarely
prosecuted.
HHS did not make Kennedy available for an interview. The White House did
not respond to a request for comment. The Samoan prime minister’s office
and the former prime minister who corresponded with Kennedy did not
respond to requests for comment.
Kennedy’s Samoa visit has become one of the most contentious events in
his career. At the time, he was leading a nonprofit known for its
anti-vaccine activism. Critics said the visit fueled anti-vaccine
sentiment in Samoa, which later experienced the measles outbreak that
killed 83 people, mostly children under 5.
Attorneys said lawmakers could use Kennedy’s statements as grounds for
hearings, investigations or an impeachment inquiry. But such action is
unlikely under the current Republican-led Congress, which is aligned
with President Donald Trump's administration.
Massachusetts Sen. Edward Markey and Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, both
Democrats who questioned Kennedy about Samoa in his confirmation
hearings, accused the health secretary of lying.
Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said he will
press Republicans to refer the case to the Justice Department, and
pledged to hold Kennedy accountable if Democrats retake the Senate in
fall elections.
“There are consequences for lying to Congress,” he said.
Under repeated questioning, Kennedy insisted vaccines weren’t the
reason for the trip
At the start of Trump’s second term, Kennedy — then a leader in the
anti-vaccine movement — faced an uphill battle to become the nation’s
health secretary. Lawmakers from both parties had criticized his
anti-vaccine rhetoric, and in confirmation hearings, he tried to assure
them that he supported childhood vaccination.
The Samoa trip also came under scrutiny.
Kennedy told the senators that his Samoa visit didn't influence people’s
decisions on whether to vaccinate.
Several times, he flatly denied that his reason for the trip had
anything to do with vaccines.
When it came up during Wyden's questioning, Kennedy replied: “I went
there, nothing to do with vaccines. I went there to introduce a medical
informatics system that would digitalize records in Samoa and make
health delivery much more efficient.”
The following day, when Markey asked, Kennedy said: “My purpose in going
down there had nothing to do with vaccines.”
Upon further questioning, Kennedy again denied it had anything to do
with vaccines before adding: “My purpose in the trip was not to — I
ended up having conversations with people, some of whom I never intended
to meet.”
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump's choice to be
Secretary of Health and Human Services, appears before the Senate
Finance Committee for his confirmation hearing, at the Capitol in
Washington, Jan. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis, file)
In the end, Kennedy won crucial support from Republican Sen. Bill
Cassidy, the Louisiana physician who leads the Senate health
committee and strongly advocates vaccination. The Senate confirmed
Kennedy on a 52-48 vote.
Cassidy said he voted to confirm Kennedy because Kennedy promised
not to change certain vaccine policies and guidance. For example,
Cassidy said when announcing his vote, Kennedy pledged to maintain a
vaccine advisory committee “without changes.” In office, Kennedy
ousted all 17 members of the committee and named his own advisers.
Cassidy has acknowledged his trust in Kennedy was broken.
“The commitments that were made to me have been violated,” Cassidy
said on CBS's “Face the Nation” in June.
Letters show Kennedy wanted to study Samoa’s use of MMR vaccine
Kennedy for years was chair and chief legal counsel of Children’s
Health Defense, a nonprofit group known for its anti-vaccine
activism. The group turned its attention to Samoa in July 2018, when
two young children died after receiving a tainted MMR vaccine that
had been improperly prepared. The two nurses involved were
criminally charged the following month. The nurses ultimately
pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
The Samoan government halted all vaccinations for 10 months, until
April 2019. Vaccination rates plummeted.
During that time, CHD started contacting the Samoan government,
according to emails previously obtained by the AP and the Guardian
through a lawsuit against the State Department brought with the aid
of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
In the newly obtained letter from Kennedy, also revealed through the
lawsuit and dated Jan. 20, 2019, he addressed then-Prime Minister
Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi and described his desire to study
Samoa’s use of the MMR vaccine.
Kennedy speculated that the deaths in Samoa may have been caused by
issues with different vaccine lots. Writing on CHD letterhead, he
said his team wanted to evaluate whether that was the case through a
“detailed health informatics assessment.”
He expressed his belief that it was difficult and time-consuming in
most of the world to investigate “adverse health events associated
with vaccines” and said health information systems are rarely
designed to quickly study links “between diagnoses and specific
vaccination events.”
The letter did not specifically discuss anti-vaccine activism.
The prime minister responded a month later, saying Samoa could
benefit from CHD’s assessment.
“It is certainly beneficial for Samoa to have the benefit of your
Team’s independent health assessment of our MMR Vaccines and I would
welcome with much anticipation your Team’s proposed visit to our
islands,” he wrote.
CHD did not respond to a request for comment.
Kennedy, his wife, actor Cheryl Hines, and Michael Graven, a CHD
colleague, took their trip to Samoa in May and June of that year. By
then, vaccinations had resumed and Samoa’s top health official had
announced that human error, not a vaccine issue, caused the
children's deaths.
While in Samoa, Kennedy met with anti-vaccine activists, including
one who helped arrange the trip with a U.S. Embassy employee, the AP
and the Guardian previously reported.
Months later, with vaccination rates still dangerously low, measles
broke out, sickening thousands.
Public health experts have said their efforts to address the
outbreak were hampered by anti-vaccine activists, some of whom they
claim were emboldened by Kennedy’s visit.
The AP and the Guardian previously reported that State Department
and UNICEF officials privately discussed that the trip was about
vaccines.
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