Overview
- This week reporting from The Guardian and other outlets published 2019 emails in which Dr. Michael Graven described the Samoa trip as a “mission” to review medical record data tied to a discontinuity in vaccinations.
- Kennedy told the Senate during his 2025 confirmation hearings that the trip “had nothing to do with vaccines” and was limited to building a medical informatics system and digitizing records.
- The emails say Kennedy and Graven planned weeks of data collection but left after only a few days, and a State Department official said they fell short of influencing Samoan vaccination policy.
- Samoa halted routine MMR shots for about 10 months after two infant deaths from a tainted batch and suffered a measles outbreak in late 2019 that killed 83 people, mostly young children, providing the sensitive public health context for the visit.
- The disclosures have prompted renewed questions about whether Kennedy misled Congress and renewed scrutiny of his past role with Children's Health Defense, though no legal finding or congressional ruling on perjury has been reported.