A letter obtained by the Associated Press shows Kennedy sought to examine Samoa’s MMR vaccines before visiting the country, despite later telling senators the trip had nothing to do with vaccines. HHS disputes that conclusion.
Newly obtained correspondence conflicts with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s repeated account to senators that his 2019 trip to Samoa had nothing to do with vaccines.
In a January 20, 2019 letter to Samoa’s then-prime minister, Kennedy proposed that his team conduct a health-data assessment examining what had happened with the country’s measles, mumps and rubella vaccines. The letter followed the 2018 deaths of two children who received improperly prepared MMR doses; Samoan authorities later attributed those deaths to human error in preparation, not a defect in the vaccine.
During his 2025 confirmation hearings, Kennedy said the trip’s purpose was to introduce a medical-informatics system and improve health-record systems. The Associated Press reported that the letter, written before the visit, explicitly sought an assessment related to MMR vaccines. Kennedy traveled to Samoa in May and June 2019, before a measles outbreak later that year that killed 83 people, most of them young children.
The Department of Health and Human Services said the Samoa visit was unrelated to vaccines and rejected any suggestion that Kennedy lied to Congress. Kennedy was not under oath during the confirmation hearing. Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden and Edward Markey, who questioned Kennedy about the trip, said the documents show he misled the Senate.
The documents do not by themselves settle broader arguments over Kennedy’s effect on vaccine confidence in Samoa. But they directly undercut his categorical description of the trip’s purpose, while HHS maintains the visit should not be characterized as vaccine-related.
