“RFK Jr. has lied to the Senate”: Lawmakers call for criminal probe, ouster

“小罗伯特·肯尼迪欺骗了参议院”：议员们要求进行刑事调查并将其罢免

Senators are renewing calls for anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy to step down or be ousted—and at least one is calling for a criminal investigation—amid the release of documents they say prove Kennedy lied to them during his confirmation hearings last year. 参议员们再次呼吁反疫苗立场的卫生部长小罗伯特·肯尼迪（Robert F. Kennedy Jr.）辞职或被罢免——其中至少有一位议员要求进行刑事调查——此前披露的文件显示，肯尼迪在去年的提名确认听证会上对他们撒了谎。

“This is a pattern, not a slip,” Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) said in a statement. “RFK Jr. has lied to the Senate, lied to the American people, and jeopardized the health of children to advance his anti-vaccine agenda.” “这是一种惯性行为，而非口误，”马萨诸塞州民主党参议员爱德华·J·马基（Edward J. Markey）在一份声明中表示。“小罗伯特·肯尼迪欺骗了参议院，欺骗了美国人民，并为了推进其反疫苗议程而危及了儿童的健康。”

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said in a social media post Friday that the documents were “Proof we got RFK lying on the record during his confirmation hearing (a crime).” He called for the matter to be referred to the US Department of Justice for a criminal investigation. In a separate statement to The Guardian, Wyden added that “RFK’s platform is built on lies and grifts that leave a trail of dead children in their wake. There are consequences for lying to Congress.” 俄勒冈州民主党参议员罗恩·怀登（Ron Wyden）周五在社交媒体上发文称，这些文件是“证明小罗伯特·肯尼迪在确认听证会上作伪证（一种犯罪行为）的证据”。他呼吁将此事移交美国司法部进行刑事调查。在给《卫报》的另一份声明中，怀登补充道：“小罗伯特·肯尼迪的平台建立在谎言和欺诈之上，留下了儿童死亡的惨痛代价。对国会撒谎必须承担后果。”

New documents

新文件

During Kennedy’s reality-bending confirmation hearings in January 2025, multiple senators raised concern about a trip Kennedy took to Samoa in 2019. At the time, Kennedy was a prominent anti-vaccine activist leading the rabidly anti-vaccine organization Children’s Health Defense (CHD). Just months after he visited the island nation, Samoa suffered a massive measles outbreak in which 83 people died, mostly children under the age of 5. The outbreak was largely fueled by a swell of vaccine hesitancy, drummed up by anti-vaccine activists. Vaccination rates had cratered to as low as 31 percent. 在2025年1月肯尼迪那场令人匪夷所思的确认听证会上，多位参议员对他2019年萨摩亚之行表示担忧。当时，肯尼迪是一位著名的反疫苗活动家，领导着激进的反疫苗组织“儿童健康防御”（CHD）。在他访问该岛国仅几个月后，萨摩亚就爆发了大规模麻疹疫情，导致83人死亡，其中大多数是5岁以下的儿童。疫情在很大程度上是由反疫苗活动家煽动的疫苗犹豫情绪所引发的。当时疫苗接种率暴跌至仅31%。

While the senators linked Kennedy’s anti-vaccine work to that deadly measles outbreak, Kennedy denied any connection during the confirmation hearings. In an exchange with Wyden, Kennedy claimed: “I went there, [it had] nothing to do with vaccines. I went there to introduce a medical informatics system that would digitalize records in Samoa and make health delivery much more efficient.” In an exchange with Markey, he said: “My purpose in going down there had nothing to do with vaccines.” 尽管参议员们将肯尼迪的反疫苗工作与那场致命的麻疹疫情联系起来，但肯尼迪在确认听证会上否认了任何关联。在与怀登的交流中，肯尼迪声称：“我去那里与疫苗无关。我去那里是为了引入一套医疗信息系统，将萨摩亚的记录数字化，并提高医疗服务的效率。”在与马基的交流中，他说：“我去那里的目的与疫苗毫无关系。”

On Thursday, the Associated Press and The Guardian jointly released newly obtained documents that directly contradict Kennedy’s statements. One of the documents is a letter Kennedy sent to Samoa’s prime minister in January 2019, in which Kennedy falsely suggested “deaths associated recently with MMR [measles, mumps, and rubella] vaccines” were due to a bad lot of vaccinations from the manufacturer. Kennedy proposed letting him and his “team” from CHD investigate the country’s MMR vaccines. In all, Kennedy used the words ‘vaccination’ and ‘vaccine’ eight times in the letter proposing his visit. The prime minister responded with a letter in February saying he welcomed Kennedy and his “team’s independent health assessment of our MMR vaccines.” He requested Kennedy coordinate a visit with him. 周四，美联社和《卫报》联合发布了新获得的文件，直接反驳了肯尼迪的说法。其中一份文件是肯尼迪在2019年1月写给萨摩亚总理的信，信中肯尼迪虚假地暗示“近期与麻腮风（MMR）疫苗相关的死亡”是由于制造商的一批劣质疫苗造成的。肯尼迪提议让他和来自CHD的“团队”调查该国的MMR疫苗。在提议访问的信中，肯尼迪总共使用了8次“疫苗接种”和“疫苗”这两个词。总理在2月份回信表示，欢迎肯尼迪及其“团队对我们的MMR疫苗进行独立健康评估”，并要求肯尼迪与他协调访问事宜。

What happened in Samoa

萨摩亚发生了什么

As Ars Technica reported in 2019, the deaths Kennedy was likely referring to in his letter were those of two infants, who died shortly after receiving MMR shots in July 2018. Officials determined that two nurses had mixed the vaccine with a lethal dose of muscle relaxant. One of the nurses tried to cover up the error by fishing the empty bottle of the muscle relaxant out of the garbage and taking it home. The two ultimately faced manslaughter charges and were both sentenced to five years in prison in August 2019. 正如Ars Technica在2019年报道的那样，肯尼迪在信中提到的死亡事件很可能是指两名婴儿，他们在2018年7月接种MMR疫苗后不久死亡。官方调查认定，两名护士将疫苗与致死剂量的肌肉松弛剂混合。其中一名护士试图通过从垃圾桶中捞出肌肉松弛剂的空瓶并带回家来掩盖错误。两人最终面临过失杀人指控，并于2019年8月均被判处五年监禁。

In the meantime, CHD and other anti-vaccine activists pounced on the tragedy, claiming that the MMR vaccine was to blame. CHD spent months highlighting the deaths in Facebook posts and questioning the safety of MMR vaccines. They never updated the posts to include information about the nurses’ fatal errors. It was in this context that Kennedy visited Samoa in May and June of 2019, bringing a CHD member and his wife, actor Cheryl Hines, along with him. During the visit he was pictured with local anti-vaccine activists and staff members of the US embassy. 与此同时，CHD和其他反疫苗活动家利用这一悲剧，声称MMR疫苗是罪魁祸首。CHD花了数月时间在Facebook帖子中强调这些死亡事件，并质疑MMR疫苗的安全性。他们从未更新这些帖子以包含关于护士致命错误的信息。正是在这种背景下，肯尼迪于2019年5月和6月访问了萨摩亚，并带上了一名CHD成员和他的妻子、演员谢丽尔·海因斯（Cheryl Hines）。访问期间，他被拍到与当地反疫苗活动家和美国大使馆工作人员在一起。

Samoa’s deadly measles outbreak began in October. In November, an official with the World Health Organization directly tied the outbreak to an anti-vaccine group stoking fear on social media, without directly naming CHD. The official said that the impact of the group “now being measured in the lives of children who have died in the course of this outbreak.” Also in November, Kennedy sent the prime minister a four-page letter falsely claiming that the measles vaccine was to blame for the outbreak, writing erroneously that the MMR vaccine could spur “the evolution of more virulent measles strains.” 萨摩亚致命的麻疹疫情始于10月。11月，世界卫生组织的一名官员直接将疫情与一个在社交媒体上煽动恐惧的反疫苗组织联系起来，尽管没有直接点名CHD。该官员表示，该组织的影响“现在正以在这场疫情中死亡的儿童生命来衡量”。同样在11月，肯尼迪给总理写了一封四页的信，虚假地声称麻疹疫苗是疫情的罪魁祸首，并错误地写道MMR疫苗可能会刺激“更强毒性麻疹病毒株的进化”。

With the release of the new letters yesterday, more lawmakers are speaking out against Kennedy and his anti-vaccine agenda. The documents land as the US itself is grappling with slipping vaccination rates and unbridled measles outbreaks, which have killed two people, including a newborn, this year. Kennedy has responded by spreading misinformation and downplaying the threat, as he has in the past. Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.) said Kennedy “must resign or be fired immediately.” Hawaii Governor Josh Green, a doctor who responded to Samoa’s measles outbreak, also renewed his call for Kennedy to immediately resign. 随着昨天这些新信件的发布，更多的议员站出来反对肯尼迪及其反疫苗议程。这些文件发布之际，美国自身正面临疫苗接种率下滑和麻疹疫情失控的问题，今年已有两人（包括一名新生儿）因此死亡。肯尼迪对此的回应依然是散布虚假信息并淡化威胁，正如他过去所做的那样。马里兰州民主党参议员安吉拉·奥尔索布鲁克斯（Angela Alsobrooks）表示，肯尼迪“必须立即辞职或被解雇”。曾参与应对萨摩亚麻疹疫情的医生、夏威夷州州长乔什·格林（Josh Green）也再次呼吁肯尼迪立即辞职。