RFK Jr has been a long-time vaccine skeptic. When he was up for his senate confirmation hearings for the post of secretary of health and human services, he downplayed that. But there was an incident in 2019 when he went to Samoa to spread his vaccine denial and afterwards there was a deadly outbreak of measles there. He had been chair and chief legal counsel of Children’s Health Defense, a nonprofit group known for its anti-vaccine activism. In July 2018, two children died in Samoa even though they had been vaccinated and Kennedy and CHD exploited that tragedy to cast doubt on vaccines. It later turned out that the fault was not the MMR vaccine itself but that it had been improperly prepared and thus contaminated and two nurses were criminally charged and pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

When questioned about that during his senate conformation hearings, he said that his visit to Samoa had nothing to do with vaccines. But now a letter, obtained through lawsuit filed against the State Department by the AP and the Guardian with the aid of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, has surfaced that shows that the visit was all about vaccines.

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.
…

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. [My emphasis-MS]
…

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.
…

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.”

The letter he sent to the Samoan prime minister flatly contradicts what he told the Sente committee.

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.

Wyden is now calling for a criminal investigation of RFK Jr. Good.

Kennedy has now insinuated that two recent deaths in Pennsylvania ascribed to measles may have been ‘fabricated’ and his anti-vax cult members are trying to contact the family members.

RFK Jr. is a real sleaze bag who does not care that his anti-vaccine crusade resulted in so many avoidable deaths. If I had the slightest indication that any action on my part had been a factor in the deaths of 83 people, most of them very young children, I would not be able to live with myself, let alone sleep at night. The fact that it does not seem to trouble RFK Jr. and that he continues to wreak damage reveals what an amoral sociopath he is.