Anti-vaccination propaganda kills.

In just three and half months, up to January 2020, there were 5700 cases of measles in Samoa. Nearly two thousand people had to be admitted to hospital. Eighty-three people died. Almost all of these were children. One family lost three of its children. This in a country with a population of 200,000 people. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/measles-in-samoa/

How could this happen? In 2018 two Samoan infants died after receiving a vaccine which had been mixed with expired muscle relaxant instead of water. This had nothing to do with the vaccine itself. The two nurses responsible were sentenced to jail for manslaughter. https://www.abc.net.au/…/samoa-nurses…/11378494

Three of Fa'aoso Tuivale's children died in the measles outbreak
Three of Fa’aoso Tuivale’s children died in the measles outbreak

Anti-vaxxers including Robert F Kennedy Jr used this incident to scare people in Samoa about vaccines in general, resulting in a collapse in vaccination rates.

Just as bad, after the outbreak began, RFK Jr wrote a letter to the Prime Minister of Samoa, telling him the outbreak was probably caused by the vaccine itself, and urging him to stop the government’s renewed efforts to protect people from the virus. Comments on this from an infectious diseases doctor:

“In brief, RFK Jr. laid down a stinky thick layer of bullshit. There is one of two possibilities. Either he was utterly clueless and was just regurgitating a particularly brain dead bit of Wakefield antivaccine propaganda, or he knew just what he’s doing and was lying. Take your pick. In his letter to Prime Minister Malielegaoi, he despicably weaponized that very bullshit in order to try to convince the leader of a country in which measles has already killed over five dozen people and sickened thousands more that the MMR vaccine both caused and has exacerbated the epidemic. Words fail me when it comes to describing how—dare I say?—evil this is.”

That doctor’s article discussing that Kennedy’s malignant influence in Samoa and its results is here: https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/…/samoa-measles…/

Anti-vaccination propaganda kills. Don’t fall for it.