Over two days of questioning at some level of his Senate affirmation hearings final 300 and sixty five days, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. repeated the same solution.
He stated the closely scrutinized 2019 run back and forth he took to Samoa, which came forward of a devastating measles outbreak, had “nothing to do with vaccines.”
Documents obtained by The Guardian and The Associated Press undermine that testimony. Emails sent by staffers at the U.S. Embassy and the United International locations provide, for the important thing time, an inside peek at how Kennedy’s run back and forth came about and embody contemporaneous accounts suggesting his considerations about vaccine safety motivated the debate over with.
The documents dangle introduced about considerations from as a minimal one U.S. senator that the attorney and activist now main The US’s health policy lied to Congress over the debate over with. Samoan officers later stated Kennedy’s run back and forth bolstered the credibility of anti-vaccine activists sooner than the measles outbreak, which sickened hundreds of of us and killed 83, mostly younger of us below age 5.
The revelations, which strategy as measles outbreaks erupt all around the U.S., create on old criticism that Kennedy’s anti-vaccine file makes him unfit to again as health secretary, a characteristic in which he has worked to radically reshape immunization policy and public perceptions of vaccines.
The newly disclosed documents also demonstrate previously unknown itsy-bitsy print of the run back and forth, alongside side that a U.S. Embassy employee helped Kennedy’s crew connect with Samoan officers. Kennedy, then working his anti-vaccine community Younger of us’s Successfully being Defense, did not publicly discuss the run to the time, however he has since stated his “perform” for going there turned into not linked to vaccines and “I performed up having conversations with of us, a couple of of whom I by no plan intended to meet.” Apart from meeting with anti-vaccine activists, Kennedy met with Samoan officers, alongside side the health minister at the time, who instructed NBC Files that Kennedy shared his peek that vaccines had been not precise. Kennedy has stated he went there to introduce a medical files machine.
The U.S. Sing Division turned over the emails — quite lots of which might perchance perchance perchance well presumably be closely redacted — because an commence files lawsuit introduced with the inspire of the Journalists Committee for Freedom of the Press.
These disclosures strategy at a time when Kennedy, as President Donald Trump’s health secretary, has frail his energy and huge public affect to overtake federal immunization steering and lift suspicion in regards to the safety and significance of vaccines, alongside side the measles vaccine. Meanwhile, measles outbreaks in more than one U.S. states dangle rolled inspire many years of success in putting off the highly contagious illness, putting the nation on the verge of losing its elimination map. The most popular figures discover greater than 875 of us in South Carolina had been infected.
‘Nothing to do with vaccines’
Kennedy addressed questions about his run back and forth to Samoa at some level of two Senate affirmation hearings for his appointment as health secretary.
“My perform in taking place there had nothing to do with vaccines,” he stated below questioning by Democratic Sen. Edward Markey of Massachusetts in his Jan. 30, 2025, hearing.
“Did the run back and forth don’t dangle anything to do with vaccines as you instructed my colleagues in Senate Finance the day prior to this?” Markey requested later.
“Nothing to do with vaccines,” Kennedy answered.
One of many senators who wondered Kennedy about Samoa at some level of his affirmation hearings, Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, replied to the strategies by announcing, “Kennedy’s anti-vaccine agenda is at as soon as accountable for the deaths of innocent younger of us.”
“Lying to Congress about his characteristic within the lethal measles outbreak in Samoa handiest underscores the hazard he now poses to families all over The US,” Wyden stated in an electronic mail. “He and his allies will almost certainly be held accountable.”
Taylor Harvey, a spokesman for Wyden and varied Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee, stated it is a crime to manufacture a unfaithful assertion to Congress and “informal, unfaithful denials to Congress might perchance well well presumably not be swept below the rug.”
A spokesman for the U.S. Division of Successfully being and Human Products and services did not reply to questions sent by electronic mail and text message.
Kennedy has stated his talk over with did not affect of us’s choices on whether to salvage themselves or their younger of us immunized.
“I had nothing to do with of us not vaccinating in Samoa. I by no plan instructed anybody now to not vaccinate,” he instructed the 2023 documentary “Shot within the Arm.” “I didn’t, you understand, run there for any reason to do with that.”
A halted vaccine program
Anti-vaccine activists within the US grew to became drawn to Samoa in July 2018, when two infants died after being injected with a rotten measles, mumps and rubella, or MMR, vaccine that had been improperly ready. The executive halted the vaccine program for 10 months, till the next April. Vaccination rates plummeted.
The files discover that at some level of the time when no vaccines had been being administered, Kennedy’s community, Younger of us’s Successfully being Defense, turned into attempting to connect Kennedy with Samoa’s high minister. A January 2019 electronic mail from the community’s then-president, Lyn Redwood, to Samoan activist Edwin Tamasese requested him to “please fraction this letter with the Honorable Top Minister Tuilaepa Aiono Sailele Malielegaoi for Robert Kennedy, Jr.”
About two months later, Tamasese wrote inspire to Redwood, with a cc: to Kennedy and others.
“Hope all is smartly, organizing logistics with the PMs affirm of job and wanted to substantiate how many of us are coming? Also correct wanted to substantiate prices and so forth for the debate over with and the absolute top plan this would perchance well presumably be handled,” he wrote.
Tamasese at as soon as forwarded the chain of messages to the interior most and executive electronic mail accounts of Benjamin Harding, at the time an employee of the U.S. Embassy in Apia, Samoa.
“correct sent this. expecting an solution the next day as I feel it is Sunday there. your letter appears to be like acceptable,” Tamasese instructed Harding.
Whereas the U.S. Embassy within the past has acknowledged that an unnamed staffer attended an tournament with Kennedy and anti-vaccine activists whereas he turned into in Samoa, the strategies discover that Harding wasn’t a passive attendee: He helped put together Kennedy’s talk over with and linked Kennedy’s delegation with Samoan executive officers.
In a Could perchance perchance 23, 2019, electronic mail to Harding’s interior most electronic mail cope with, a staffer for the Samoan Ministry of International Affairs and Trade wrote: “Hi Benj, Currently expecting the genuine bio-notes for Mr Kennedy and Dr Graven to explain to the Hon. Top Minister and Hon. Minister of Successfully being for his or her reference. Please present, that this wishes to be sent with our genuine letter when requesting an appointment.”
Harding forwarded the ministry’s quiz to Dr. Michael Graven, then the executive files officer at Younger of us’s Successfully being Defense.
Harding did not reply to messages searching for comment sent to lots of listed electronic mail addresses, social media accounts, a phone number listed to his of us and a popular mailbox at a firm he lists as a fresh affirm of job on his LinkedIn profile.
Embassy staffers got a tip about Harding’s involvement within the run back and forth from Sheldon Yett, then the representative for Pacific island countries at UNICEF, the United International locations Younger of us’s Fund.
“We now stamp that the Top Minister has invited Robert Kennedy and his crew to formula to Samoa to evaluate the safety of the vaccine,” Yett wrote in a Could perchance perchance 22, 2019, electronic mail to an embassy staffer basically based solely in Contemporary Zealand. “The workers member in inquire of appears to be like to dangle had a characteristic in facilitating this.”
Two days later, a high embassy workers member in Apia wrote to Scott Brown, then the Republican U.S. president’s ambassador to Contemporary Zealand and Samoa, alerting him to Kennedy’s run back and forth and Harding’s involvement.
“The right kind reason Kennedy is coming is to lift consciousness about vaccinations, more particularly a couple of of the health considerations associated with vaccinating (from his level of peek),” the embassy genuine, Antone Greubel, wrote. “It turns out our very dangle Benjamin Harding played some characteristic in a interior most ability to explain him right here.” Greubel wrote that he instructed Harding to “stop and desist from any further involvement with this spin,” even supposing the leisure of the sentence is redacted.
A 2019 electronic mail to U.S. ambassador Scott Brown alerting him to the impending talk over with to Samoa of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
A 2019 electronic mail to U.S. ambassador Scott Brown alerting him to the impending talk over with to Samoa of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Yett did not reply to questions, even supposing he stated in an electronic mail, “that turned into a in level of reality grim time in Samoa.”
Brown, who’s working for the U.S. Senate in Contemporary Hampshire, declined to comment. Greubel referred inquiries to a press affirm of job at the Sing Division. A Sing Division spokesperson would not solution questions in regards to the strategies, announcing that as a popular be aware they do not touch upon personnel matters.
Harding left the embassy in July 2020, even supposing he stays in Samoa, basically based solely on his LinkedIn tale.
Kennedy in a roundabout plan visited in June 2019. Whereas there, he and his wife, actor Cheryl Hines, had been photographed greeting the high minister at some level of an Independence Day celebration. He also met with executive health officers as smartly as a community of figures who dangle solid doubt on vaccines, alongside side Tamasese.
The Guardian and the AP might perchance well well presumably pick up no file of Kennedy publicly discussing the perform of his run back and forth till after measles struck. In 2021, he wrote that he went there to chat about “the introduction of a medical informatics machine” to trace drug safety. He stated Samoan officers “had been strange to measure health outcomes following the ‘pure experiment’ created by the nationwide respite from vaccines.”
Since then, he has stated his clarification for going to Samoa turned into not linked to vaccines.
Redwood, the light Younger of us’s Successfully being Defense president who made early outreach to Samoa, is now an employee at HHS, reportedly working on vaccine safety.
Right thru the measles outbreak, Kennedy wrote a four-page letter to Samoa’s high minister suggesting without evidence that the measles infections had been due to the a shocking vaccine and floating varied pretend theories.
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This story turned into collectively reported and printed by The Guardian and The Associated Press.