In 2019, a devastating measles outbreak erupted in Samoa. Eighty-three people, most of them children, died. Another 5,000 contracted the disease, many of which suffer long-term damage as a result. In total, around 3% of the small island’s population fell ill.

It was a spasm of tragedy on a remote Pacific island that only a few months later was overshadowed by a pandemic. But to Gov. Josh Green of Hawaii, the measles outbreak on neighboring Samoa that killed 83 people,

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told senators that his trip to the country later hit by a measles outbreak had "nothing" to do with vaccines.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pushed back on Democrats’ allegations that he contributed to a measles outbreak in Samoa, saying vaccination rates were already low when he visited in 2019. “I went there nothing to do with vaccines,