In the meantime, CHD and other anti-vaccine activists pounced on the tragedy, claiming that the MMR vaccine was to blame. CHD spent months highlighting the deaths in Facebook posts and questioning the safety of MMR vaccines. They never updated the posts to include information about the nurses’ fatal errors.
It was in this context that Kennedy visited Samoa in May and June of 2019, bringing a CHD member and his wife, actor Cheryl Hines, along with him. During the visit he was pictured with local anti-vaccine activists and staff members of the US embassy.
Samoa’s deadly measles outbreak began in October. In November, an official with the World Health Organization directly tied to the outbreak to an anti-vaccine group stoking fear on social media, without directly naming CHD. The official said that the impact of the group “now being measured in the lives of children who have died in the course of this outbreak.” Also in November, Kennedy sent the prime minister a four-page letter falsely claiming that the measles vaccine was to blame for the outbreak, writing erroneously that the MMR vaccine could spur “the evolution of more virulent measles strains.”
With the release of the new letters yesterday, more lawmakers are speaking out against Kennedy and his anti-vaccine agenda. The documents land as the US itself is grappling with slipping vaccination rates and unbridled measles outbreaks, which have killed two people, including a newborn, this year. Kennedy has responded by spreading misinformation and downplaying the threat, as he has in the past.
Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.) said Kennedy “must resign or be fired immediately.” Hawaii Governor Josh Green, a doctor who responded to Samoa’s measles outbreak, also renewed his call for Kennedy to immediately resign.