Pennsylvania has recorded four measles deaths this year — the state’s first in 35 years — yet the federal government’s official measles death count still sits at zero. That gap, argues The New York Times’ opinion writer Jessica Grose, is the newest tactic in the Trump administration’s campaign to erode trust in vaccines, led by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Pennsylvania’s nearly 800 cases make it the epicenter of a national outbreak topping 3,400 cases. Ninety-nine percent of those infected in the state were unvaccinated, including all four who died. Yet Kennedy accused Gov. Josh Shapiro of “fearmongering, misinformation, finger-pointing, and the weaponization of infectious disease fears for political gain.”
Pennsylvania Health Secretary Dr. Debra L. Bogen pushed back in a letter to CDC Director Dr. Erica Schwartz: “The C.D.C.’s choice not to publicly recognize the deaths undermines our response.” Former CDC officials Dr. Debra Houry and Dr. Demetre Daskalakis noted that Texas’ 2025 measles deaths went onto the CDC dashboard without dispute. “It is unclear what was different other than the state being ‘blue’ and its governor’s criticism of the administration,” they wrote.
Kennedy fired all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices last year, and at a recent Children’s Health Defense conference he spoke for over an hour without once mentioning the outbreak. President Trump, meanwhile, issued an executive order recommending the MMR vaccine be split into three shots and trimming recommended childhood vaccinations from 17 diseases to 11 — while falsely calling the combined shot lethal, a claim CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz later had to walk back on national TV.
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Even so, Kennedy remains surprisingly popular. A Harvard CAPS/Harris poll from late August found 43 percent view him favorably versus 39 percent unfavorably — an edge Grose credits to his social media savvy and right-wing media’s embrace of the anti-vaccine cause.
