In it, he suggested the measles vaccine itself may have caused the outbreak. At the time of his letter, 16 people, many of them younger than 2, were already reported dead. For months, families grieved over heartbreaking little coffins, until a door-to-door vaccination campaign brought the calamity to a close. I was in Samoa during that outbreak as part of my more than 16 years of reporting on the anti-vaccine movement. Migration and poverty were likely factors in a sudden spread of measles in Samoa and New Zealand.

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Persons: Robert F, Kennedy Jr, —, Donald Trump’s, Human Services —, ”, Kennedy Organizations: Health, Human Services, Children’s Health Defense, Pacific, New Zealand Medical Locations: Samoa, New Zealand