RFK Jr’s Samoa Vaccine Letter Contradicts His Senate Testimony, New Documents Reveal
A letter Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sent to Samoa’s prime minister before his 2019 visit referenced vaccines or vaccination eight times, contradicting his repeated statements during his January 2025 Senate confirmation hearings that the trip had “nothing to do with vaccines.”
The correspondence has prompted Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Angela Alsobrooks, D-Md., to launch an investigation into Kennedy’s statements and activities surrounding the visit. In a letter Wednesday to Children’s Health Defense (CHD), a nonprofit known for anti-vaccine activism that Kennedy formerly chaired, the lawmakers requested a broad range of documents related to his Samoa travel, 2024 presidential campaign and Senate confirmation process.
Federal law prohibits knowingly making materially false statements in matters within the jurisdiction of the U.S. government, even when the person making the statements is not under oath. No criminal finding has been made against Kennedy.
Documents Detail Coordination Around Samoa Vaccine Policy
Emails through an open records lawsuit brought with assistance from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press show that Kennedy’s June 2019 trip to Samoa was organized months in advance. A January 2019 email from CHD’s then-President Lyn Redwood to Samoan activist Edwin Tamasese asked him to deliver a letter from Kennedy to Samoa’s prime minister, Tuilaepa Aiono Sailele Malielegaoi.
A U.S. Embassy employee, Benjamin Harding, helped connect Kennedy’s delegation with Samoan government officials. In a May 22, 2019, email, UNICEF’s then-representative for Pacific island countries, Sheldon Yett, wrote that the prime minister had invited Kennedy “to come to Samoa to investigate the safety of the vaccine.”
Two days later, senior U.S. Embassy official Antone Greubel wrote to then-Ambassador Scott Brown, alerting him that Kennedy’s visit was motivated by vaccine concerns and that Harding had personally facilitated it. “The real reason Kennedy is coming is to raise awareness about vaccinations,” Greubel wrote.
During his visit, Kennedy met with government health officials and individuals who had publicly questioned vaccine safety, including Tamasese. Samoa’s health minister at the time said that Kennedy shared his view that vaccines weren’t safe.
Samoa’s Measles Outbreak and the Vaccine Controversy
The controversy began in July 2018, when two infants died after receiving an improperly prepared measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine in Samoa. The deaths prompted the Samoan government to suspend its vaccination program for 10 months. Vaccination rates subsequently fell before the program resumed. Kennedy visited Samoa in June 2019, while concerns about immunization remained significant.
A measles outbreak subsequently spread across the country, sickening thousands and killing 83 people, most of them children younger than 5. Samoan officials later said Kennedy’s visit had bolstered the credibility of anti-vaccine activists ahead of the outbreak. During the outbreak, Kennedy also wrote a four-page letter to Samoa’s prime minister suggesting, without evidence, that measles infections were due to a defective vaccine and offering other unfounded theories.
Kennedy and HHS Deny Wrongdoing
Kennedy has maintained that his 2019 trip wasn’t intended to discourage vaccination. He has said he traveled to Samoa to introduce a medical informatics system designed to track drug safety and that Samoan officials “were curious to measure health outcomes following the ‘natural experiment’ created by the national respite from vaccines.”
In a 2023 documentary, Kennedy said, “I had nothing to do with people not vaccinating in Samoa. I never told anybody not to vaccinate.” The department said Kennedy’s visit “was unrelated to vaccines,” adding that “any claim or insinuation based on these letters that Secretary Kennedy lied under oath or to Congress is not only false but outright defamatory.”
Wyden, who questioned Kennedy directly about Samoa during the confirmation hearings, criticized the health secretary following the publication of the documents.”Kennedy’s anti-vaccine agenda is directly responsible for the deaths of innocent children,” Wyden said in an email. “Lying to Congress about his role in the deadly measles outbreak in Samoa only underscores the danger he now poses to families across America. He and his allies will be held responsible.”
Senate Investigation Adds to Political Scrutiny
Wyden is expected to chair the Senate Finance Committee when Democrats assume control in January 2027. The committee oversees Medicare, Medicaid and significant parts of the Department of Health and Human Services. Alsobrooks serves on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which also has oversight responsibilities involving the department.
Redwood, who sent the original outreach email to Samoa and served as CHD’s president, is now an HHS employee reportedly working on vaccine safety. The requested records could provide further details about Kennedy’s communications with CHD and the information available to lawmakers during his confirmation process.”
