Pennsylvania health officials confirmed two measles deaths last week. One victim was an infant in Lancaster County. They were the first measles deaths in the state in 35 years.
Captain Sharts-a-Lot's health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., was asked about the deaths the next day at a school event in Tampa. He did not offer condolences. He made air quotes around the word 'casualties.'
Kennedy told reporters that no one was doing 'critical inquiry' into whether the deaths 'actually happened.' He said his department could not yet confirm them. Pennsylvania had already confirmed them through laboratory testing and a coroner review.
At a briefing the previous day, Governor Josh Shapiro had warned that misinformation has real-life consequences. He announced the first measles deaths in Pennsylvania since 1991. The state has reported measles cases across 28 counties, up from six total cases in 2024.
Seventy people statewide have been hospitalized. Roughly half of the cases are in Lancaster County. The secretary said the country was doing 'a better job than any country in the world' at controlling measles.
The federal government's top health official had described a dead infant as a paperwork issue. A department spokesperson said the new verification standard was reasonable.
'We cannot confirm a death until we have verified the child's identity through our own channels,' the spokesperson said. 'We have requested a birth certificate, a death certificate, and a second, living child with the same name to rule out confusion.'
The secretary spent years questioning the MMR vaccine before taking the job. The vaccine has been in use for more than 50 years. The same virus killed more than 120 Americans between 1989 and 1991, most of them in Black and Latino communities.
Nationwide measles cases are on pace for the worst year in more than three decades. The current outbreak is following the same pattern of hitting underserved communities first. But this time, the man running HHS has spent years telling parents not to trust the shot.
