The Pennsylvania Department of Health this week recorded its first two measles-associated deaths in 35 years, both in people who were unvaccinated. The agency declined to provide further details, saying it was protecting patient privacy.
What came next was a war of words.
Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, said at a news conference Tuesday that he had spoken to US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and “made very clear that his actions and the rhetoric coming from this administration are having a negative impact on communities across America, particularly right here in Pennsylvania.”
Before becoming HHS secretary under President Trump, Kennedy was a leading voice casting doubt on the safety of vaccination. In 2021, Kennedy – then head of the anti-vaccine organization Children’s Health Defense – visited Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where he made light of his own childhood case of measles and suggested that vaccines were causing autism and autoimmune diseases.
On social media Wednesday, Kennedy accused Shapiro of fearmongering and the “weaponization of infectious disease” for political gain. He suggested that the deaths there may have been “altogether fabricated” by one of Shapiro’s “hopeful staffers” to support a narrative that measles infection is more dangerous than it actually is. He also said the coroner in Lancaster County, where the two people lived, had no record of any measles-related deaths.
