Kennedy repeatedly said 2019 Samoa trip had ‘nothing to do with vaccines’. An email from his then colleague says they were on a vaccine-related ‘mission’ New evidence has emerged that Robert F Kennedy Jr was on a vaccine-related “mission” when he visited Samoa ahead of a deadly measles outbreak in 2019, raising further questions about whether the US health secretary lied to the US Senate when he said the trip had “nothing to do with vaccines”. Records obtained by the Guardian show Kennedy’s colleague told Samoan officials in an email that he and Kennedy were coming as part of a mission to study the island nation’s medical records in the aftermath of a “discontinuity in vaccinations”.