U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. directed the CDC to remove two Pennsylvania measles-associated deaths from the national outbreak tally. New CDC Director Erica Schwartz agreed and removed the cases without objection, despite agency staff having previously accepted Pennsylvania’s classification of the deaths. The state had notified the CDC on August 25 that two unvaccinated Lancaster County residents had died with measles, marking the state’s first such deaths in 35 years. The CDC’s public dashboard currently shows zero measles deaths nationally for 2026.
The removal followed a public clash between Kennedy and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, after which Kennedy suggested Shapiro’s office had fabricated the deaths. The Lancaster County coroner subsequently stated he had no record of any measles deaths and had only examined an infant whose death he attributed to a ruptured spleen. Pennsylvania’s health department explained that it uses the term measles-associated when lab or epidemiological evidence links a death to the virus, and noted it is not required to report every death to the coroner. Meanwhile, the coroner’s office stated it is still investigating the infant’s death and was unaware of the second person mentioned by state officials.
Pennsylvania has recorded 497 measles cases this year, with nearly half in Lancaster County. This marks one of the clearest instances of the Trump administration’s health secretary directly intervening in how federal data reflects a vaccine-preventable disease outbreak.