Only 11 States Hit 95%: Public Health Experts Warns of Measles Herd Immunity Drop

Part four of Tragedy in Paradise, an Atlanta News First investigation shedding light on potential consequences of declining vaccination rates.

WASHINGTON — During his U.S. Senate confirmation hearings in January 2025, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. denied any role in a 2019 measles outbreak that killed dozens of people on the island nation of Samoa. He insisted he made no public statements about vaccines and claimed many deaths weren’t from measles at all.

“When the tissue samples were sent to New Zealand, most of those people did not have the measles,” Kennedy, now secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), said. “We don’t know what was killing them.”

That’s not true, say Samoan health officials past and present.

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Dr. Robert Thomsen, Samoa’s current deputy director of public health, said measles was responsible for Samoans’ deaths. “We also had a forensic pathology team that came at a time and confirmed that they died of measles,” Thomsen said in an interview with Atlanta News First Investigates.

Dr. Take Naseri, who was the nation’s top health director during the 2019 outbreak, agreed: “The vaccines did not kill the children. It was the measles virus.”

Thirty-three days after two Samoan children died in 2018 from a deadly mix of the MMR vaccine and muscle relaxant, an organization Kennedy founded, Children’s Health Defense, paid Facebook to post multiple ads sowing doubt about the vaccines.

One ad claimed measles vaccines were linked to chronic illnesses and autism, claims widely debunked by scientific research.

All of the Facebook ads were targeted to female users, according to research conducted by George Washington University.

About a year later, a measles outbreak ravaged the island nation. More than 5,700 were infected. Eighty-three people died, most of them children.

Six months before the outbreak, Kennedy visited Samoa. It was organized by a Samoan vaccine skeptic, according to a post written by Kennedy.

During his visit, Kennedy also posed for pictures with a Samoan social media influencer known for sharing anti-vaccine content.

During the confirmation hearings in January, Kennedy told lawmakers he has no regrets. “I never made any public statements about vaccines. You will not find a single Samoan who will say I didn’t get a vaccine because of Bobby Kennedy,” he said.

As head of U.S. Health and Human Service, Kennedy continues to sow doubt about the measles vaccine.

In May, U.S. senators questioned Kennedy multiple times over whether he would recommend the measles vaccine to the public. He was unable to clearly answer yes to all but one of the questions.

“I am not going to just tell people everything is safe and effective if I know there are issues,” Kennedy said on May 14, 2025.

Public health experts say Kennedy’s messaging about Samoa’s outbreak and the safety of the measles vaccine has undermined efforts to increase vaccination rates when it’s needed the most.

This year, the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported nearly 1,300 measles cases across 34 states, the highest in more than three decades. Two children and one adult died; none had been vaccinated.

Only 11 states last year achieved the 95 percent vaccination rate needed in kindergartens to achieve herd immunity, according to the CDC. Georgia is not one of them.

Since taking office, Kennedy has since taken sweeping action, including firing the CDC’s vaccine advisory board and replacing members with vaccine skeptics.

One of those new appointments is Lyn Redwood, former president of Children’s Health Defense, the organization public health officials say has spread measles and the MMR vaccine misinformation for years.

Dr. Peter Marks, formerly the nation’s top vaccine regulator at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, said Kennedy’s influence could endanger millions.

“I worry about the next infectious outbreak,” he said. “Will we be able to convince people to take a vaccine?”

Dr. Marks said he was forced to resign after Kennedy’s confirmation.

According to a study published by Stanford University researchers this year, if measles vaccine rates continue to decline just 10% in the U.S., 11.1 million measles cases could result over the next 25 years. That could cause the disease to become endemic again.