Opinion | Hawaii Governor: Robert F. Kennedy Is Unfit to Be HHS Secretary

In early December of 2019, I called Faimalotoa Kika Stowers, the health minister of Samoa.The measles outbreak that had begun earlier that fall on her small Pacific island nation had spread out of control and become an epidemic that threatened to overwhelm the country.

The deep bond Hawaii shares with Samoa meant this was a shared crisis.As the lieutenant governor of Hawaii at the time and a practicing physician, I knew we needed to act quickly to save lives.Almost 20 years earlier, I had arrived on Hawaii’s Big Island as part of the National Health Service Corps to practice medicine at a small clinic in a remote community.

I learned the value of preventative health care for rural, low-income patients, and the essential fact that vaccines are one of the most effective tools we have to prevent illness and save lives, especially those of children.As a rule, keeping vaccination rates above 95 percent can protect an entire population from infectious diseases like measles.But when vaccination rates fall, preventable diseases can regain a foothold and pose a new danger.

And that’s precisely what happened in Samoa, after misinformation spread by anti-vaccine activists eroded trust in vaccines and led to the 2019 outbreak.Thousands of preventable cases of measles sprung up, leading to the deaths of 83 people, mostly children.

One of the most prominent voices behind the anti-vaccine campaign was Robert Kennedy Jr.Vaccines and public health vaccination programs are not just medical interventions, they are also moral imperatives.They embody our commitment to saving lives, ending disease and protecting the health and well-being of future generations.

If Mr.Kennedy is confirmed as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services under President-elect Donald Trump and serves as our nation’s chief health care officer, there is a real danger that he will continue to spread doubt and misinformation, potentially causing vaccination rates to fall and leading to mor...