Documents show Kennedy wrote about MMR vaccines before 2019 Samoa trip he told Congress was unrelated to vaccines

The letter, dated January 20, 2019, and written on Children's Health Defense letterhead, addressed then-Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi. In it, Kennedy described his desire to study Samoa's use of the MMR vaccine in the wake of the deaths of two young children who had received a tainted dose improperly prepared by nurses. Kennedy speculated the deaths could have stemmed from issues with different vaccine lots and proposed that his team conduct "a detailed health informatics assessment" of what happened with the MMR vaccines.

The Samoan prime minister responded a month later, saying the country could benefit from CHD's assessment and expressing anticipation for the proposed visit. Kennedy, his wife, actor Cheryl Hines, and CHD colleague Michael Graven traveled to Samoa in May and June 2019. By that point, Samoa's top health official had publicly announced that human error, not a vaccine problem, caused the children's deaths, and vaccinations had resumed after a 10-month halt that had caused vaccination rates to plummet.

During his confirmation hearings, Kennedy was asked about the Samoa trip on multiple occasions. When Sen. Ron Wyden questioned him, Kennedy said: "I went there, nothing to do with vaccines. I went there to introduce a medical informatics system that would digitalize records in Samoa and make health delivery much more efficient." The following day, when Sen. Edward Markey asked, Kennedy said: "My purpose in going down there had nothing to do with vaccines." The Department of Health and Human Services, responding to questions from the AP, maintained that the Samoa visit "was unrelated to vaccines" and stated that any suggestion Kennedy lied to Congress was "not only false but outright defamatory." Kennedy was not under oath during his confirmation hearing; HHS did not make Kennedy available for an interview.