Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump's pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, faced tough questioning from Democrats on Wednesday over his criticism of vaccines and his role in stopping measles vaccinations in Samoa, which led to the infection of 57,000 Samoans, dozens of whom died.
"In 2021, in a book called 'The Measles Book,' you wrote that parents had been 'mislead into believing measles is a deadly disease and that measles vaccines are necessary, safe and effective,'" Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said at the hearing. "The reality is that measles are in fact deadly and highly contagious, something that you should have learned after your lies contributed to the deaths of 83 people, most of them children, in a measles outbreak in Samoa."
