{"id":21017,"date":"2025-01-28T20:03:18","date_gmt":"2025-01-28T21:03:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=21017"},"modified":"2025-01-28T21:31:57","modified_gmt":"2025-01-28T21:31:57","slug":"hawaii-governor-a-doctor-blames-kennedy-for-measles-deaths-in-samoa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=21017","title":{"rendered":"Hawaii Governor, a Doctor, Blames Kennedy for Measles Deaths in Samoa"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Gov. Josh Green battled a measles outbreak that killed 83 people, mostly children. President Trump wants Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a vaccine skeptic, as his health policy chief.<\/p>\n

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It was a spasm of tragedy on a remote Pacific island that only a few months later was overshadowed by a global pandemic. But to Gov. Josh Green of Hawaii, the measles outbreak on neighboring Samoa that killed 83 people, mostly babies and children, was a preventable catastrophe wrought by the man President Trump now wants to steer American health policy.<\/p>\n

In December of 2019 Dr. Green, an emergency medical physician and Hawaii\u2019s Democratic lieutenant governor at the time, rounded up a medical team and thousands of vaccine doses and flew to Samoa to help. Last month he flew to Washington aiming to alert lawmakers from both parties about the role Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Mr. Trump\u2019s nominee for health and human services secretary and a longtime vaccine skeptic, played in the Samoa outbreak.<\/p>\n

Mr. Kennedy\u2019s confirmation hearings are on Wednesday and Thursday before two Senate committees, which will then vote on whether his nomination advances to the full Senate.<\/p>\n

Democrats are attempting to leverage<\/a> Mr. Kennedy\u2019s connection to the Samoa outbreak to build opposition to his nomination. Dr. Green recently appeared in an ad<\/a> by a liberal advocacy group, 314 Action, saying, \u201cR.F.K. Jr. had spread so much misinformation that the country stopped vaccinating, and that caused a tragic and fatal spread of the measles.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In an interview on Monday, Dr. Green said that based on his conversations so far, if the full Senate vote was taken anonymously, \u201cR.F.K. Jr. would be defeated 70-30 or worse.\u201d At the same time, he said, \u201cthe political climate has everyone under great pressure to go with the president, or be labeled disloyal.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokeswoman for Mr. Kennedy did not respond to requests for comment on Tuesday. In the past he has blamed Samoa\u2019s measles outbreak on \u201can Indian-manufactured MMR vaccine,\u201d referring to the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine.<\/p>\n

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Gov. Josh Green battled a measles outbreak that killed 83 people, mostly children. President Trump wants Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a vaccine skeptic, as his health policy chief.It was a spasm of tragedy on a remote Pacific island that only a few months later was overshadowed by a global pandemic. But to Gov. Josh Green of Hawaii, the measles outbreak on neighboring Samoa that killed 83 people, mostly babies and children, was a preventable catastrophe wrought by the man President Trump now wants to steer American health policy.In December of 2019 Dr. Green, an emergency medical physician and Hawaii\u2019s Democratic lieutenant governor at the time, rounded up a medical team and thousands of vaccine doses and flew to Samoa to help. Last month he flew to Washington aiming to alert lawmakers from both parties about the role Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Mr. Trump\u2019s nominee for health and human services secretary and a longtime vaccine skeptic, played in the Samoa outbreak.Mr. Kennedy\u2019s confirmation hearings are on Wednesday and Thursday before two Senate committees, which will then vote on whether his nomination advances to the full Senate.Democrats are attempting to leverage Mr. Kennedy\u2019s connection to the Samoa outbreak to build opposition to his nomination. Dr. Green recently appeared in an ad by a liberal advocacy group, 314 Action, saying, \u201cR.F.K. Jr. had spread so much misinformation that the country stopped vaccinating, and that caused a tragic and fatal spread of the measles.\u201dIn an interview on Monday, Dr. Green said that based on his conversations so far, if the full Senate vote was taken anonymously, \u201cR.F.K. Jr. would be defeated 70-30 or worse.\u201d At the same time, he said, \u201cthe political climate has everyone under great pressure to go with the president, or be labeled disloyal.\u201dA spokeswoman for Mr. Kennedy did not respond to requests for comment on Tuesday. In the past he has blamed Samoa\u2019s measles outbreak on \u201can Indian-manufactured MMR vaccine,\u201d referring to the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21019,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21017"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21020,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21017\/revisions\/21020"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}