RFK Jr. Asked CDC to Remove 2 Measles Deaths as Pennsylvania Outbreak Grows

U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is facing scrutiny over his handling of Pennsylvania’s growing measles outbreak.

Kennedy, 72, asked newly appointed Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Erica Schwartz to remove references to two Pennsylvania deaths from the agency’s online measles tally after questioning whether the disease caused or contributed to the fatalities, according to a Reuters report published Thursday, September 3. T

Three sources familiar with the situation said Schwartz agreed to the request and implemented it without objection, per the report.

According to the outlet, the Pennsylvania Department of Health had notified the CDC of the two measles-associated deaths on August 25. Both individuals were unvaccinated, and state officials said they were Pennsylvania’s first deaths associated with the virus in 35 years.

Reuters reported CDC staff had initially accepted Pennsylvania’s classification of the deaths as associated with measles, and a Pennsylvania official said that the CDC did not initially raise concerns about the information it received and “signified its ongoing support for the [state health] department’s efforts.”

Kennedy and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro have clashed over the state’s response to the outbreak and the safety of vaccines. Per the report, Shapiro said he told Kennedy during an August 25 phone call that the health secretary’s past statements were “having a negative impact on communities across America.”

Kennedy pushed back on X, accusing Shapiro of misrepresenting their conversation. “During our phone conversation, Governor Shapiro also accused me of promoting vaccine misinformation,” Kennedy wrote. “When I asked him for an example, he was unable to provide one, but this did not deter him from publicly repeating that accusation during his press event.”

In the social media post, Kennedy also defended comments he had made to Shapiro about religious objections to the MMR vaccine and argued that public trust in vaccines had been damaged during the COVID-19 pandemic. “The Trump administration is working to restore public trust not by gaslighting or manipulating, but by being truthful, at last, with the public,” Kennedy wrote.

A spokesperson for Pennsylvania’s Department of Health said, per Reuters, that Pennsylvania had “provided all required epidemiological data to the CDC.”

The CDC later excluded the two Pennsylvania fatalities from its federal death count and added a note to its online measles data explaining its position, per the report. “At this time, available information does not establish whether measles caused or contributed to the [Pennsylvania] deaths or whether the individuals died from other causes while infected with measles,” the agency said.

Georges Benjamin, chief executive of the American Public Health Association and a former Maryland health secretary, criticized Kennedy’s involvement, saying, per the outlet, it was “unheard of” for the CDC to publicly question state and local health departments’ conclusions in such a manner.

“The secretary had no business interfering in the normal process,” Benjamin said, according to the outlet. “He has an anti-vaccine agenda and he’s using this to play out his anti-vaccine agenda.”

Grace Davis Jamison, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, said, the outlet reported, that the CDC “requested details necessary to determine whether measles caused or contributed to the deaths,” citing conflicting information from county and state officials. However, she did not address Kennedy’s or Schwartz’s roles in excluding the deaths, according to the outlet.

The dispute comes as Pennsylvania continues to battle a significant measles outbreak. At press time, the Pennsylvania Department of Health‘s online dashboard showed 577 confirmed cases across 37 counties this year, including 98 hospitalizations and two measles-associated deaths.