GoKawiil
Tech News
Measles case counts in the United States have surpassed 3,500 so far this year, already exceeding the full-year total recorded in 2025. Health officials note that roughly 10% of this year's cases were reported within just the past two weeks, indicating the outbreak's pace is accelerating rather than slowing.
Pennsylvania's health department confirmed a fourth measles-related death, an unvaccinated 18-year-old from Mifflin County whose death was linked to acute disseminated encephalomyelitis, a rare neurological complication of the disease. Officials also confirmed a coroner's report of an unvaccinated 40-year-old woman's death in Jefferson County, adding to two earlier infant deaths in Lancaster County. The state has now recorded 693 measles cases across 38 counties this year, with 133 hospitalizations.
US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is set to give a keynote speech at a sold-out Washington, DC conference hosted by Children's Health Defense, the anti-vaccine group he formerly led. He'll share the stage with Andrew Wakefield, the discredited researcher who lost his medical license after publishing a fraudulent study falsely linking the MMR vaccine to autism.
Pennsylvania health officials have reported a third death associated with the state's ongoing measles outbreak this year. Despite the mounting toll, the CDC has not yet officially confirmed any measles-related fatalities in its national tally.
Jefferson County's coroner reported that a 40-year-old unvaccinated woman died from respiratory failure linked to suspected measles after known exposure to an infected person. She had underlying conditions, including COPD, and relied on supplemental oxygen, which likely worsened her vulnerability to the virus. Her death is the third measles-related fatality in the US this year, all occurring in Pennsylvania.
The CDC has declined to include two child deaths from measles reported by Pennsylvania's health department in its official outbreak tally, departing from its usual practice of accepting state-reported data. The move follows a public dispute between HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, after Shapiro blamed vaccine misinformation for the deaths and Kennedy accused him of fabricating the incident. Both children, from Lancaster County, were unvaccinated and tested positive for measles, according to state officials.
A South Carolina coroner's office confirmed that a six-week-old infant's death was caused by measles, after HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had disputed the CDC's inclusion of measles deaths in its official count. Kennedy directed new CDC director Erica Schwartz to remove the deaths from the agency's public data, and while she complied, internal records reportedly still list them.
US measles cases have hit a 35-year high, with nearly 3,000 confirmed infections in 2026 and the first two deaths of the year reported in Pennsylvania as schools reopen. Advocacy groups say families of immunocompromised children, who can't be vaccinated or don't respond well to vaccines, are now weighing whether sending kids to school is safe as local vaccination rates fall below the 95 percent threshold needed to prevent outbreaks.
Reuters and Inside Medicine report that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. directed CDC director Erica Schwartz to delete two measles deaths—a newborn and a child in Pennsylvania—from the agency's public data, which she did without objection despite staff having already confirmed the deaths were measles-related. Even so, an internal CDC system called One CDC Data Platform, accessible to health officials nationwide, still records both deaths.
Pennsylvania health officials reported a newborn and a child died of measles, but the CDC removed these two deaths from its national measles surveillance data over the weekend after initially including them. New CDC director Erica Schwartz reportedly ordered the change, adding a disclaimer stating it's unclear whether measles caused or contributed to the deaths.
Senate Democrats including Ed Markey and Ron Wyden say newly released documents show Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gave false statements to the Senate during his 2025 confirmation hearings about his 2019 trip to Samoa, where he was a leading anti-vaccine activist before a measles outbreak killed 83 people, mostly young children. Wyden called the discrepancy a crime and urged the Department of Justice to open a criminal investigation, while Markey called it part of a broader pattern of dishonesty.
Following news that two unvaccinated people in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania—including a newborn—died of measles, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. posted a series of anti-vaccine claims on social media, attacking the MMR vaccine and Governor Josh Shapiro. He also suggested, citing a local Republican commissioner's disputed claim, that the deaths might have been fabricated by the governor's staff. These are the first measles deaths in Pennsylvania in 35 years and the first in the US in 2026, amid a national outbreak that has reached nearly 2,800 cases, the worst since 1991.