
"I support the measles vaccine, I support the polio vaccine, I will do nothing as HHS secretary that makes it difficult or discourages people from taking either of those vaccines."
Nominee for Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr appeared before the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday for his confirmation hearing, during which he was questioned about the 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa.
"Let me explain what happened in Samoa," Kennedy told the committee. "In Samoa in 2017, or 2015, there were two kids who died following the MMR vaccine. And the vaccination rates in Samoa dropped precipitously from about 63 percent to the mid-30s, so they’ve never been very high." He said that in 2018 two more children died following the vaccine, after which "the government in Samoa banned the MMR vaccine."
"I arrived a year later when vaccination rates were already below any previous level. I went there, nothing to do with vaccines," he said, adding that he was there to introduce a system "that would digitalize records in Samoa and make health delivery much more efficient.
"I never gave any public statement about vaccines, you cannot find a single Samoan who will say 'I didn’t get vaccinated because of Bobby Kennedy.' I went in June of 2019, the measles outbreak started in August.
He said that 83 people died, and that when tissue samples were sent to New Zealand, it was found that "most of those people did not have measles. We don’t know what was killing them." He noted that the same outbreak also occurred in Tonga and Fiji "and no extra people died."
Senator Ron Wyden said that Kennedy wrote a book "saying that people had been mislead into thinking that measles is a deadly disease. He’s trying now to play down his role in Samoa. That’s not what the parents say, that’s not what Governor Green says, It’s time to make sure that we blow the whistle on actually what your views are."
Kennedy replied, "I support the measles vaccine, I support the polio vaccine, I will do nothing as HHS secretary that makes it difficult or discourages people from taking either of those vaccines," echoing a similar statement he made during opening statements, which was met with yelling from a person in the crowd, that he is not "anti-vaccine."
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