Senator Wyden demands criminal probe into RFK Jr. over Samoa measles deaths

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s numerous falsehoods are finally catching up to him, as Oregon Senator Ron Wyden has called for a criminal investigation into the Health Secretary's conduct.

Wyden cited new evidence that directly connects Kennedy and his anti-vaccine messaging to the deadly 2019 measles epidemic in Samoa.

"RFK's platform is built on lies and grifts that leave a trail of dead children in their wake," Wyden told The Guardian. "There are consequences for lying to Congress."

Wyden added that he intends to press the Senate's Republican majority to issue a criminal referral for Kennedy to the Justice Department.

"When Democrats retake the majority in the Senate, RFK will be at the top of the list of Trump officials the Finance Committee will hold accountable for endangering American families," said Wyden, who currently serves as the top Democrat on the committee.

Contradictory Testimony

During two separate confirmation hearings last year, Kennedy claimed that his trek to the Polynesian island country had "nothing to do with vaccines."

However, letters obtained by The Guardian and the Associated Press reveal that the virulent anti-vaxxer explicitly informed the Samoan prime minister ahead of his trip that he intended to study the efficacy of the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine.

In one such letter dated January 20, 2019, Kennedy unambiguously argued that he believed two infant deaths on the island were "temporally associated with MMR vaccines."

The Samoa Outbreak

Kennedy's visit immediately preceded a deadly measles outbreak on the island. At the time, Kennedy's anti-vaxx nonprofit, Children's Health Defense, spread rampant misinformation about the efficacy of vaccines throughout Samoa, tanking the island's vaccination rate from 60–70 percent to just 31 percent, according to Mother Jones.

Up until that point, Samoa had not experienced a severe measles outbreak since 1985, when 1,095 confirmed cases were reported to the World Health Organization. But in 2019, after Kennedy's visit, the country reported:

• 5,707 cases of measles
• 83 measles-related deaths, the majority of which were children under the age of five

Impact on the United States

The conspiratorial rhetoric of the anti-vaxx movement has had similarly deleterious effects on local inoculation rates in the U.S., spurring a regional measles health crisis that has so far killed two people and infected more than 2,777 people this year alone—far exceeding the tally for 2025 by hundreds of cases.

According to CDC data, vaccination coverage for U.S. kindergartners fell by nearly three percent—from 95.2 percent to 92.4 percent—between the 2019–2020 school year and the 2025–2026 school year. The dip is more significant than it appears at face value: the lowered figures place these age groups below the 95 percent threshold for herd immunity that would protect even unvaccinated members of a community.

Calls for Removal

Other Democratic officials have similarly called for Kennedy to be removed from his post since the letters emerged.

• Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey said in a statement that Kennedy "cannot be trusted to run HHS for even one more day."
• Hawaii Governor Josh Green, who personally witnessed the Samoan outbreak, said Kennedy needed to immediately resign "for the safety and health of our country."
• Maryland Senator Angela Alsobrooks told CNN that America's current measles outbreak could be "tied directly to the horrific leadership of Secretary Kennedy."

Kennedy was not under oath at the time of his confirmation hearing, but that does not mean he had free license to lie to America's lawmakers about his qualifications to lead.