HONOLULU >> It was a spasm of tragedy on a remote Pacific island that only a few months later was overshadowed by a 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 Donald Trump now wants to steer U.S. health policy.

In December 2019, Green, an emergency medical physician and Hawaii’s 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., Trump’s nominee for health and human services secretary and a longtime vaccine skeptic, played in the Samoa outbreak.

Kennedy’s confirmation hearings are 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 Kennedy’s connection to the Samoa outbreak to build opposition to his nomination. Green appeared in an ad by a liberal advocacy group, 314 Action, saying, “RFK Jr. had spread so much misinformation that the country stopped vaccinating, and that caused a tragic and fatal spread of the measles.”

A spokesperson for Kennedy did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday.