The United States Secretary of Health and Human Services looked at two confirmed measles deaths — one of them a newborn — and his public contribution was to suggest on X that the whole thing might be made up. This is where we are. This is who is running public health in America.
What Actually Happened in Pennsylvania
About 424 Pennsylvanians have confirmed measles cases, according to state figures, and 73 have been hospitalized. Every single one of them is unvaccinated. Two people in Lancaster County have died, at least one of them a newborn who tested positive for measles and whose lung tissue, examined after death, showed a measles infection acquired before birth.
The Lancaster County coroner, a Republican elected official named Stephen Diamantoni, told the Philadelphia Inquirer he believed the baby died shortly after birth from a lacerated spleen. Paul Offit, an infectious disease physician at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, told The Guardian that an enlarged spleen is a well-documented complication of measles infection. Measles caused the enlarged spleen. The ruptured spleen killed the baby. These things are connected. This is not complicated.
Pennsylvania's health secretary, Dr. Debra Bogen, said the state notified the CDC of both deaths early Tuesday morning, before the public announcement was made. Both individuals tested positive for measles. The state's epidemiology team investigated both cases thoroughly. None of this was secret. None of this was slow-walked.
RFK Jr's Response: Maybe It's All Fake
Governor Josh Shapiro announced the deaths publicly and, at a press conference, pointed directly at misinformation from the federal government as a contributing factor. "There's real-life consequences to spreading misinformation," he said. Kennedy responded on X by repeating debunked myths about the MMR vaccine. Shapiro called the claims "inaccurate and misleading" in his own post and publicly asked Kennedy to do one thing: encourage vaccination and stop spreading misinformation.
Kennedy's response, per Shapiro, was to repeat more vaccine misinformation and say "it would be better if we went back to 'natural measles.'" A few hours after that exchange, Kennedy posted again wondering whether the deaths had been "fabricated" and claiming Pennsylvania was refusing to share information with the CDC. Pennsylvania had, again, already notified the CDC before the public announcement was made.
The CDC itself posted on X that it was "working to determine what actually occurred." HHS did not respond to The Guardian's questions about whether Kennedy recommends the measles vaccine or whether newly confirmed CDC director Erica Schwartz would make any statement about the outbreak.
Anti-Vaxxers Are Now Trying to Find the Families
Brian Hooker, of Children's Health Defense — the anti-vaccine organization Kennedy led until recently — said in a video that the group is "trying to get boots on the ground" and "do outreach" in Pennsylvania. What that means in practice is they want to find the families of the people who died and get cameras in front of them before anyone else does.
The Guardian reports this is exactly what happened in Texas last year, when a six-year-old girl died of measles. Children's Health Defense tracked down her Mennonite parents and filmed a misinformation-filled interview with them in what was described as a rare media appearance. They are trying to do the same thing again now.
Hooker also suggested, apparently with a straight face, that the timing of Pennsylvania's death announcement was a political ploy ahead of the midterm elections, calling it "a strategic move" to get "measles deaths on the tip of everybody's tongue." Two people are dead. One of them was a newborn. The conspiracy theory here is that the governor announced it for vibes.
RFK Jr Told These Communities Not to Vaccinate
Lancaster County is home to large Amish and Mennonite communities. These groups do not have religious objections to vaccines, but they are relatively disconnected from modern healthcare and modern life more broadly. That disconnect creates real vulnerability to preventable disease.
In 2021, per The Guardian, Kennedy gave a speech praising Amish parents in Lancaster County specifically for not vaccinating their children. He told them the cure for measles was "chicken soup and vitamin A." There is no cure for measles. There is only supportive care. He has now been handed the most powerful public health job in the country and is standing over the wreckage of exactly the outcome his advice was always going to produce.
"It's like the world's turned upside down," Offit told The Guardian. He is being diplomatic.
The Numbers on the Vaccine He Won't Recommend
The MMR vaccine is 97% effective at preventing measles, according to public health data. Every single person hospitalized or killed in this Pennsylvania outbreak was unvaccinated. This is not a coincidence. This is the vaccine working exactly as intended, for the people who got it, and not working for the people who were told by people like Kennedy that it wasn't worth getting.
HHS did not respond to questions from The Guardian about whether Kennedy personally recommends the MMR vaccine. The Secretary of Health and Human Services will not say whether Americans should get the measles vaccine during a measles outbreak that has killed two people. That is the situation.
The Dingo Take
Two people are dead from a disease that a 97% effective vaccine has existed for since 1963. One of them was a newborn. And the man responsible for American public health spent his week on X suggesting it was probably fake, repeating debunked myths about the MMR vaccine, and telling a governor trying to contain an outbreak that things would be better if everyone just got measles the old-fashioned way. That is not a policy position. That is a person who should not have this job.
The most damning thing about this story is not any single Kennedy post. It's the 2021 speech. He stood in Lancaster County, looked at the exact communities now burying their dead, praised them for staying unvaccinated, and told them chicken soup would handle it if things went sideways. Then the Trump administration handed him HHS. Those communities trusted the wrong people, and the wrong people are now in charge of making sure it keeps happening.
Kennedy's allies are currently hunting down grieving families in Pennsylvania so they can film interviews and launder their misinformation through people who just lost children. The CDC is posting on X that it is "working to determine what actually occurred." HHS won't say whether the health secretary recommends the measles vaccine. If this is what winning looks like, somebody needs to explain what the hell they think they won.
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