evidence: Kennedy’s charity shared a Nov. 19 letter he wrote to Samoan Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, in which Kennedy encouraged officials to examine the MMR vaccine. "To safeguard public health during the current infection and in the future, it is critical that the Samoan Health Ministry determine, scientifically, if the outbreak was caused by inadequate vaccine coverage or alternatively, by a defective vaccine," he wrote. [...] The World Health Organization estimated that in 2018, only 31 percent of infants in Samoa received the measles vaccine, a drop from 60 to 70 percent in previous years. The WHO attributed the extremely low rate in part to a public health scandal: Last year, two infants in Samoa died within hours of receiving the MMR vaccine. The country temporarily halted its vaccine program, but the vaccine did not cause the deaths. Two nurses improperly mixed the vaccines with a liquid muscle relaxant instead of water. The pair were sentenced to five years in prison for manslaughter. [...] Several countries, including Australia and New Zealand, which is contending with its own measles outbreak, have sent nurses and vaccines to Samoa. By mid-November, the United Nations Children’s Fund delivered 110,500 doses of measles vaccine.