Kennedy, Who is Scheduled to Meet With 20 Senators Next Week, Is A Threat To Our Health and Unfit To Lead Health & Human Services
Anti-vaccination conspiracy theories have deadly consequences. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Donald Trump’s nominee for the next Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), has a long track-record of peddling dangerous conspiracies around public health – views he will have to answer for in meetings with Senators next week. The devastating events that followed his visit to Samoa in 2019 could be a preview of what’s to come with Kennedy at the reins of our nation’s public health care system. Samoan doctors and nurses directly link a devastating measles outbreak that killed 83 people, primarily infants and children, to the false information about vaccines Kennedy spread during his visit.
“The American people deserve a leader at HHS who believes in science, who believes in vaccines, and who is committed to lowering costs and protecting health care coverage,” said Protect Our Care Chair Leslie Dach. “Kennedy will not trust the science and the experts, but he will instead continue his campaign of pushing dangerous misinformation. Not only does Kennedy oppose lifesaving vaccines, but he has said that he ‘does not believe that infectious disease is an enormous threat to human health’ and pledged to stop funding research for treatments and cures. Kennedy will erode the public health institutions that keep Americans safe from infectious diseases and contaminated food, and he will put vital programs, including Medicare and Medicaid, at grave risk. The effects of Kennedy leading HHS would threaten every household in the nation.”
But don’t just take our word for it:
Aiono Professor Alec Ekeroma, Samoa’s Director General of Health: “We cannot and should not stay silent. We know what this appointment means. It means more platforms for anti-vaxxers and less funding for vaccines and health programmes. It must be treated as a threat to our health security.” [The Guardian, 11/25/24]
Hawaii Governor and ER Doctor Josh Green: “As both a physician and Governor, I’ve seen the devastating effects of misinformation about vaccines. During a measles outbreak in Samoa, RFK Jr.’s rhetoric led to widespread fear, causing many to avoid vaccinations. Tragically, 83 innocent children lost their lives.” [X, 11/15/24]
- “We were in Samoa… in the aftermath of RFK Jr. going through that country and discouraging its people, scaring them, from being vaccinated… 83 children had just died and over 5,000 cases of measles that we diagnosed had been spread through the country. It was a disaster and it was caused in large part by RFK Jr. He is a terrible pick for HHS secretary and if he does become our lead health official in the country, you’re going to see outbreaks like this in rural communities and cities across America.” [MSNBC, 12/1/24]
Moelagi Leilani Jackson, Samoan Nurse: People who worked on the Samoan measles response told the Associated Press that the credibility RFK Jr. gave to anti-vaccine forces when he met with them had an impact. Moelagi Leilani Jackson, a Samoan nurse who worked on the vaccination campaign to stem the measles outbreak, said she remembered that after Kennedy’s visit, the anti-vaccine influencers “got louder.” “I feel like they felt they had the support of Kennedy. But I also think that Kennedy was very – well, he came in and he left and other people picked up the pieces.”
Pediatrician Paul Offitt, Member of a FDA Advisory Committee on Vaccines and Director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia: “In Samoa, there were two children that died immediately following receipt of a measles vaccine… Now, very quickly, within two weeks, it was realized what that mistake was. It was a nursing error. But, nonetheless, RFK Jr. seized on that. He flooded Facebook with information that the measles vaccine is killing children in Samoa. He went to Samoa. He met with anti-vaccine activists. He met with senior officials in Samoa and kept the drumbeat alive that the measles vaccine was killing children in Samoa. As a consequence, vaccination rates fell from 70 percent to 30 percent. And between September and December of 2019, there was a massive measles epidemic. In this island nation of 200,000 people, there were 57,000 cases of measles and 83 deaths. Most of those deaths were in children less than four years of age. And Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had everything to do with that. And that shows you how disinformation can kill.” [PBS NewsHour, 7/20/23]
Helen Petousis-Harris, Vaccinologist and Co-Director of the Global Vaccine Data Network: “The Samoan establishment handled the whole situation really badly and did not take the support and advice that was provided to them at the time, which is what allowed this to unravel and let RFK get in there. When you get people who are wealthy and influential going into a fragile setting, it’s like the top of the food chain visiting and meeting up with those who act as the megaphone. The impact was devastating.” [The Guardian, 11/25/24]
- The crisis of low vaccination rates and skepticism created an environment that was “ripe for the picking for someone like RFK to come in and assist with the promotion of those views.” Petousis-Harris recalled that local and regional anti-vaccine activists took their cues from Kennedy, whom she said “sits at the top of the food chain as a disinformation source.” “They amplified the fear and mistrust, which resulted in the amplification of the epidemic and an increased number of children dying. Children were being brought for care too late.” [AP, 10/18/23]
Dr. Dan Holmes, Australian Physician: “Your day might start at 6am with a baby who is unconscious and not breathing, and you might lose that baby, then there’s another one, day after day. It’s impacted me more than anything I’ve done. It makes me feel so angry that it could have been prevented.” [The Guardian, 11/25/24]
Brian Deer, Journalist: “I was in Samoa during that outbreak as part of my more than 16 years of reporting on the anti-vaccine movement. The cause of the outbreak was not the vaccine, but most likely an infected traveler… Migration and poverty were likely factors in a sudden spread of measles in Samoa and New Zealand. But, as an editorial in The New Zealand Medical Journal reported, so too was a factor that Mr. Kennedy specializes in: ‘increasing circulation of misinformation leading to distrust and reduced vaccination uptake.’ Samoa’s vaccination rates had fallen to fewer than a third of eligible 1-year-olds. Vaccine skepticism has ballooned worldwide, and Mr. Kennedy and others who back him have encouraged it. Americans may be well aware that their possible future health leader holds dangerous beliefs about vaccines. The consequences of his views — and those of his orbit — are not merely absurd but tragic.” [The New York Times, 11/25/24]