Senators Probe Health Secretary RFK Jr.'s Samoa Testimony

Sens. Ron Wyden and Angela Alsobrooks have opened an investigation into whether Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gave false testimony to Congress about his 2019 trip to Samoa, requesting records from Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine group he once chaired. The inquiry follows reporting that Kennedy told senators during his 2025 confirmation hearings that the trip had nothing to do with vaccines, while a letter he sent Samoa’s prime minister before traveling said he wanted to study the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine. Kennedy visited months before a measles outbreak that killed 83 people, mostly young children; critics, including Samoan officials, say his presence encouraged anti-vaccine activism and worsened the vaccination crisis. Kennedy and the Department of Health and Human Services reject those claims, and Kennedy says he did not discourage vaccination in Samoa.