RFK Jr. said a Samoa trip had nothing to do with vaccines. New documents refute that

Before his 2019 trip to Samoa, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sent a letter to the Samoan prime minister requesting to study the island nation's measles, mumps and rubella vaccines, following the deaths of two children who had received them. The letter, obtained by The Associated Press and The Guardian, uses the words vaccine or vaccination eight times — directly contradicting Kennedy's repeated statements to lawmakers during his confirmation that the trip had "nothing to do with vaccines."

The Department of Health and Human Services defended Kennedy, calling any insinuation that he lied "outright defamatory" and asserting that the visit was unrelated to vaccines. Kennedy was not under oath during his confirmation hearing, though knowingly giving false material testimony to Congress is a crime that carries a possible prison sentence even without an oath, though it is rarely prosecuted.

Critics have long argued that Kennedy's visit, made while he led an anti-vaccine nonprofit, fueled vaccine hesitancy in Samoa, which subsequently suffered a measles outbreak that killed 83 people, mostly children under 5. Democratic senators Edward Markey and Ron Wyden, who questioned Kennedy about Samoa, accused him of lying; Wyden said he would push for a Justice Department referral. Such action appears unlikely under the current Republican-led Congress aligned with the Trump administration, but the documents have reopened scrutiny of Kennedy's credibility and his shifting positions on vaccine policy once in office.