But parents were in no hurry to stand in line. Edwin Tamasesi, a sustainable farmer and entrepreneur, has emerged as a voice for their skepticism and will be known globally as the face of vaccine resistance in Samoa. Tamasese was critical of Western medicine in general. What the immune system cannot treat on its own can be treated with vitamins A and C. As for more serious diseases, he resorts to herbal remedies such as papaya leaf extract that comes from his own farm. He shared these ideas and more on Facebook, along with anti-vaccine content, including articles and videos from Children’s Health Defense about the dangers of vaccines. Tamasese sparred with US users on pro-vaccine pages, but was not a major influencer — until the deaths of the two children.
“Vaccines for my little country have been the topic of some international media lately, which is why I looked into it a little deeper,” he posted in a Facebook forum in 2018, along with a photo of his 6-month-old child. His eldest daughter’s vaccination record is blank except for the hepatitis B vaccine given at birth, which he said he would have liked to have prevented. “Are we missing opportunities to explore alternative options to vaccines that could be safer and more effective?”
In April the following year, Tamasesi participated in a professional exchange program run by the US State Department and, at a government function, met Malelegawi, the then Prime Minister of Samoa. According to Malilegawi, who answered questions via email this month, Tamasesi talked to him about advocating for children’s health and floated the idea that Kennedy could come to Samoa and discuss “the deeper issues around vaccines.” It is not clear whether or not Tamasisi knew Kennedy at the time.
Kennedy accepted the invitation, and on June 1, he and his actress wife Cheryl HinesHe attended the official celebration of Independence Day. The rest of Kennedy’s trip was less public. Photos posted to his Instagram account at the time show Kennedy visiting churches, playing on the beach with a group of children, and catching starfish in the ocean.
According to Nasseri, the director general of health, government officials arranged a dinner for Kennedy at a resort. Nasseri said he spoke briefly with Kennedy there and that Kennedy shared his view that vaccines were not safe. Nasseri said he told Kennedy that vaccines have solved most of the country’s infectious disease problems, “and we don’t want to stop that.”
Kennedy was not alone At dinner. He brought in a new chief information officer for Children’s Health Defense, Dr. Michael Graven, a renowned neonatologist. known as and creating information systems to track and improve health outcomes in the world’s poorest countries.
In 2012, Graven co-wrote A letter calling for the creation of integrated health systems to better evaluate vaccine effects and adverse events and monitor safety.
In 2019, Graven was analyzing data for… He studies Which will be published in 2020 by two prominent anti-vaccine activists, scientist James Lyons Wheeler and Oregon pediatrician Paul Thomas, who has obtained his license. It will be suspended In the same year – partly because he failed to adequately vaccinate patients – and later He gave up voluntarily Two years later.
Comparing the health outcomes of Thomas’s patients, the study concluded that the unvaccinated children in his practice were healthier than the immunized children. He – she It has been undone After a year of investigation that “raised numerous methodological issues and confirmed that the conclusions were not supported by solid scientific data.”
Kennedy, like Thomas and other vaccine skeptics, has strongly rejected the body of scientific studies showing that childhood vaccines are safe. Instead, he embraced Unscientific theory Some components or mechanisms in childhood vaccines must be the cause of chronic diseases in children, from allergies to autism.
Kennedy published a book on the subject in 2023, titled “Vax-Unvax: Let the Science Speak,” in which he argues that vaccinated children are less healthy than unvaccinated children, based on studies, such as the 2020 study, that have been conducted. Criticized by scholars As methodologically flawed or regressed in some cases.
It’s not clear how Graven, who died in 2022, came to know Children’s Health Defense, or why he left after just one year. He was not against vaccines, according to his widow, brother and colleague in an interview with NBC News. His brother, Kendall Graven, also a doctor, said Graven hoped to teach Kennedy how data is often misinterpreted by anti-vaccine advocates. Kennedy “was fairly open to the concept of safe vaccines, despite Mike’s efforts,” Kendall Graffin said, adding that “the Samoa disaster he did not discuss with us, other than to say it was a vaccine-preventable tragedy.”
Children’s Health Defense ultimately did not build a health information system for Samoa. Former Prime Minister Malilegawi said he was not affected by Kennedy’s visit. “I wasn’t interested in his ideas, because he wasn’t a doctor,” he told NBC News. “Our medical experts are more credible to me.”
Mary Holland, president of Children’s Health Advocacy, declined an interview request. I’ve answered a list of questions with a link to article Conflicting news reports blamed Kennedy for low vaccine coverage in Samoa.
Tamasisi declined to be interviewed for this article, saying in a Facebook post that NBC News “will clearly distort everything I say to try to prevent RFKG from heading the US National Institutes of Health.” In a direct message on Facebook, Tamasisi said Nasseri declined to view the data system provided by Children’s Health Defense. Nasseri said he did not remember such a proposal.
“I think there was some institutional resistance,” Kennedy told the Samoa Observer in 2021. “There was a measles epidemic and it kind of shut down everything in Samoa.”
First case A case of measles was reported in September 2019, likely brought by a passenger on a flight from Auckland, New Zealand, to Upolu Island in Samoa. In October, the outbreak was officially declared, and by November a national emergency was declared. Samoa closed its schools, banned children from public places, and made it illegal to discourage or prevent people from getting vaccinated. Red flags outside homes indicate there are children inside who need to be vaccinated. Samoan officials said unvaccinated children It was accounting For most deaths.
On November 19, with the death toll approaching 20, Kennedy He wrote a letter Malilegawi, baselessly suggesting that the crisis was not caused by low vaccination rates but by a mixture of possibilities, including ineffective or defective vaccines and newly immunized children “spreading” the virus to unvaccinated children.
