Lawmakers accuse RFK Jr. of misleading the Senate and call for an investigation

**New letters contradict Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s statements during his confirmation and revive calls for investigation and removal in the United States.

• Documents: A 2019 letter shows that Kennedy did address MMR vaccines before traveling to Samoa.
• Political reaction: Democratic senators called for his resignation, removal, and a possible referral to the Department of Justice.
• Health context: The revelations come as the United States faces declining vaccination rates and new measles outbreaks.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the U.S. Secretary of Health, is facing a new political offensive after recently released documents contradicted his statements during the January 2025 confirmation hearings. The records relate to a trip he took to Samoa in 2019, before the island nation suffered a measles outbreak that resulted in 83 deaths, primarily among children under 5 years old.

Senators Edward J. Markey, Ron Wyden, and Angela Alsobrooks demanded that Kennedy resign or be removed, while Wyden called for the case to be referred to the Department of Justice for investigation. The controversy gains weight because Kennedy denied before the Senate that his visit was related to vaccines, despite a letter sent by him mentioning the terms "vaccination" and "vaccine" eight times.

The statements now under scrutiny

During his confirmation hearing, Kennedy responded to questions from Wyden and Markey about his trip to Samoa, which he undertook while still heading Children's Health Defense, an organization known for promoting anti-vaccine positions. To Wyden, he claimed he went to introduce a medical informatics system aimed at digitizing health records and improving service delivery, while to Markey he stated that his purpose had nothing to do with vaccines.

The new documents, jointly published by Associated Press and The Guardian, present a different version of the trip's preparations. In a letter addressed to the Prime Minister of Samoa in January 2019, Kennedy suggested that two deaths recently associated with MMR vaccines could be due to a defective batch from the manufacturer, and proposed that he and his Children's Health Defense team investigate the country's vaccines.

The Prime Minister's response, dated February 2019, also contradicts the idea that the health issue was unrelated to the visit. The official expressed pleasure that Kennedy and his team would conduct an independent assessment of Samoa's MMR vaccines and asked him to coordinate the trip directly with him.

For Markey, the content of the letters does not represent a simple memory error but a pattern of behavior. The Democratic senator from Massachusetts accused Kennedy of misleading the Senate and the American people, in addition to endangering children's health to promote his anti-vaccine agenda.

The background of the deaths and the measles outbreak

The deaths mentioned in Kennedy's letter likely corresponded to two infants who died shortly after receiving MMR vaccines in July 2018. Authorities determined that two nurses had mixed the doses with a lethal amount of a muscle relaxant, and one of them attempted to cover up the error by retrieving the empty vial from the trash and taking it home.

Both nurses faced charges of involuntary manslaughter and received five-year prison sentences in August 2019. However, Children's Health Defense and other anti-vaccine activists used the tragedy to question the safety of the MMR vaccine, without subsequently updating their Facebook posts to incorporate the official conclusion regarding the fatal mix-up made by the nursing staff.

In this context, Kennedy traveled to Samoa during May and June 2019 accompanied by a member of Children's Health Defense and his wife, actress Cheryl Hines. During the visit, he was photographed with local anti-vaccine activists and with members of the U.S. embassy staff, months before the measles outbreak began in October.

Ars Technica's coverage recalled that vaccination rates in Samoa had fallen to levels as low as 31%, in an environment of increasing reluctance fueled by anti-vaccine activists. In November 2019, a World Health Organization official linked the outbreak to a group spreading fear on social media and warned that the impact of that campaign was already being measured in the lives of deceased children.

The Dispute Over Evidence and Political Response

After the outbreak began, Kennedy sent the Prime Minister a four-page letter in which he falsely blamed the measles vaccine and erroneously claimed that the MMR could favor the evolution of more virulent strains. This assertion was part of a public campaign that, according to released documents, presented vaccines as the cause of the problem instead of considering the decline in immunization and the spread of misleading information.

Wyden described the letters as evidence that Kennedy misled the Senate during his confirmation and recalled that false statements to Congress can have legal consequences. However, Kennedy was not under oath during those hearings, so any potential criminal liability would depend on an investigation and the assessment of the competent authorities. In a statement quoted by The Guardian, Oregon Senator also asserted that Kennedy's platform was built on lies and scams that left behind a trail of dead children, a severe political accusation that now accompanies his call for an investigation.

Alsobrooks, a Democrat from Maryland, stated that Kennedy must resign or be fired immediately, while Markey called for action in light of what he considers a pattern rather than an isolated slip. Hawaii Governor Josh Green, a physician who responded to the Samoa measles outbreak, also renewed his call for the immediate resignation of the Health Secretary.

The controversy comes as the United States faces a decline in vaccination rates and new outbreaks of measles. Kennedy has responded by spreading misinformation and downplaying the threat, according to the report, which means the debate over his statements before the Senate is also intertwined with current public health concerns.

What Could Happen After the Revelations

Wyden's request does not in itself equate to the initiation of a criminal case, as the referral to the Department of Justice and any subsequent decision depend on the competent authorities. However, the accusation raises the institutional cost of the responses offered by Kennedy during his confirmation and opens a new front for those questioning his continued leadership of the Department of Health.

The central point of the dispute is not only whether Kennedy visited Samoa to discuss medical technology but whether he deliberately concealed that he had proposed evaluating MMR vaccines and had attributed the deaths of two infants to a supposed defective batch. The contradiction between his responses from January 2025 and the letters from 2019 provides lawmakers with a more concrete documentary set than criticisms based solely on his public statements.

There is also at stake the difference between an investigation into possible false statements to Congress and the scientific evaluation of vaccines. The documents describe nursing errors as the cause of the deaths in 2018, while health authorities linked the subsequent outbreak to low immunization coverage and fear spread by activists, not to a failure of the MMR vaccine.

For now, the calls from Markey, Wyden, Alsobrooks, and Green reflect increasing political pressure, but the disclosed information does not indicate that Kennedy has resigned or been removed. The case will continue to depend on how the Department of Justice, the Senate, and the administration respond to the accusations, while outbreaks of measles keep the discussion about misinformation and vaccination at the center of the American debate.