The Ugly Exchange Between Shapiro and Kennedy Over Measles

The war of words between Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has turned acrimonious. As reported earlier, two people were reported dying from measles in Pennsylvania’s Lancaster County — the state’s first measles deaths in 35 years. Nearly 400 cases have now been reported statewide. Shapiro has suggested that Kennedy’s public skepticism about vaccine safety helped fuel the outbreak, implying the secretary bears some responsibility for the deaths. Shapiro says he personally confronted Kennedy over vaccine misinformation after the two unvaccinated residents died.

Kennedy had called the governor and offered to send federal personnel to help Pennsylvania respond to the growing outbreak. Shapiro declined, telling him the state didn’t need the assistance.

Shapiro didn’t stop there. “Shapiro then said “Unfortunately at a time where I needed the top health expert in the nation to responsibly work with us to deal with this outbreak, he instead chose to go down a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories and false claims… and blaming the previous Administration for this problem.” Of course, Kennedy is not “the top health expert in the nation.” Far from it. Shapiro also said that “I was very, very blunt with him, and I made very clear that his actions and the rhetoric that’s coming from this administration are having a negative impact on communities across America, particularly right here in Pennsylvania,” Shapiro said. “There’s real life consequences to spreading misinformation.”

Kennedy fired back, accusing Shapiro’s office of unwilling to give the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention any details about the deaths, and suggesting the deaths may have been fabricated for political purposes. He said of Shapiro: “The performance was a replay of the Democrats’ COVID playbook: fearmongering, misinformation, finger-pointing, and the weaponization of infectious disease fears for political gain.”

Politico reported that state officials confirmed that the two victims were from Lancaster County and unvaccinated, declining to say whether they were children or adults or whether they belonged to a religious community that traditionally forgoes vaccination, citing patient privacy. Also a county commissioner said that he asked for information from the coroner’s office and was told that “it currently has ZERO reported cases where measles is the immediate cause of death.” Again the county said “Due to patient confidentiality, the PA DOH will not be releasing any additional personal information about the two deceased residents from Lancaster County.” 

The nationwide vaccination rate has slipped during the Trump administration, from the roughly 95 percent needed for herd immunity down to about 92.4 percent, alongside a rise in measles cases. Kennedy maintains that the administration is rebuilding trust in the nation’s public health institutions — though the evidence suggests the opposite is happening.

Still, this is a genuinely important story to get right. Did two people actually die of measles in Pennsylvania? The coroner’s office’s statement casts some doubt, and it’s hard to see how confirming the basic facts of the deaths would violate the families’ privacy, if the deaths did occur as described. Also there are Amish and Mennonite communities in Lancaster County that have resisted vaccinations so an important question is whether the cases were in those communities that have experienced outbreak of measles in the past.