MISLEADING CLAIMS
Mother Jones
Appearing in Shot in the Arm, a 2023 documentary about vaccine opposition, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was asked about the deadly measles outbreak that occurred in Samoa in 2019 and claimed the lives of 83 people, mostly children. Kennedy, a leading anti-vaxxer who had visited the Pacific island nation a few months before the outbreak, replied, “I’m aware there was a measles outbreak…I had nothing to do with people not vaccinating in Samoa. I never told anybody not to vaccinate. I didn’t go there with any reason to do with that.”
Kennedy was being disingenuous, sidestepping his connection to that tragedy. Children’s Health Defense, the nonprofit anti-vax outfit he led until becoming a presidential candidate, had helped spread misinformation that contributed to the decline in measles vaccination that preceded the lethal eruption. And during his trip to Samoa, Kennedy had publicly supported leading vaccination opponents there, lending credibility to anti-vaxxers who were succeeding in increasing vaccine hesitation among Samoans. Moreover, in early 2021, Kennedy, in a little-noticed blog post, hailed one of those vaccination foes as a “hero.”
Notes
The author provides no evidence supporting that RFK Jr told anybody not to get vaccinated during his visit to Somoa. Furthermore, Children’s Health Defense (CHD) could not have contributed to the decline in measles vaccination the author cites, as explained below. The author also asserts that RFK Jr.’s visit boosted local anti-vaxxers, which helped cause the drop in vaccination rates. Again, this is impossible given the timing of the suspension of the measles vaccination program and the vaccination rates cited by the author, explained below.
Despite the article’s title, “How RFK Jr. Falsely Denied His Connection to a Deadly Measles Outbreak in Samoa,” there is no evidence of any falsehood in RFK Jr.’s reply.
In the years prior to 2019, measles had not been a problem in Samoa. But in 2018, two infants died after receiving the measles vaccine. The country quickly placed its vaccine program on hold, as vaccine opponents, including Children’s Health Defense, exploited these deaths to raise questions about the safety of vaccines. The vaccination rate plummeted from in the 60-to-70 percent range to 31 percent.
Notes
This implies that Children’s Health Defense (CHD) contributed to a vaccination rate of 31%. This is the exact estimate for vaccination coverage in 2018 provided by the WHO and UNICEF. The Samoan government suspended its measles vaccination program from July 2018 to April 2019. The drop in vaccination coverage to 31% cannot be attributed to CHD since the suspension continued through the end of 2018.
But the problem, it turned out, was not with the vaccine. Two nurses had mistakenly mixed the vaccine with a muscle relaxant. Once this was revealed, CHD did not update social media posts suggesting the vaccine was the culprit. (Those posts are no longer available.)
During the stretch in which the vaccination coverage was dropping in Samoa, Kennedy visited the nation in June 2019 and gave a boost to anti-vaxxers there who had used the death of those two infants to help cause the drop in vaccination rates.
Notes
The dates of these social media posts await confirmation as these posts are no longer available. However, the Washington Post makes the same claim — that CHD never conveyed the nurses’ error to its audience — yet the single CHD Facebook post the author cited included a link to an article reporting the nurses’ error. The Washington Post article is discussed here.
As explained above, nobody could have used the death of the two infants to help cause the drop in vaccination rates because (a) the low rate cited is the 2018 estimate and (b) the measles vaccination program was almost immediately shut down after the deaths and extended through the end of 2018. In this context, the only entity responsible for using “the death of those two infants to help cause the drop in vaccination rates” is the Samoan government.
CHD could not have impacted vaccination coverage in 2018 unless CHD caused the government to shut down the program (July 9, 2018) days after the two deaths (July 6, 2019) or prevented them from resuming the program, or both. In hindsight, the Samoan Ministry of Health claims that “fear towards vaccinations on the social media, and other media forms causing the government to suspend its measles vaccination programme.” However, as discussed on our Investigations page, this argument doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.
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Measles outbreak spurred by anti-vaxxers shuts down Samoan government
