By Yasmeen Abutaleb and Dan Levine
WASHINGTON, Sept 3 (Reuters) – U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. asked his new CDC director to remove a reference to two Pennsylvania deaths from the agency’s online measles tally after he questioned whether the disease contributed to the fatalities, three sources familiar with the situation said.
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Kennedy’s request came after CDC staffers had already accepted the state’s characterization of the deaths as linked to measles, a Pennsylvania official said.
Despite that, Erica Schwartz, the recently appointed director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, agreed with Kennedy’s directive and implemented it without objection, said the three sources familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The move followed a heated exchange on social media between Kennedy, a long-time anti-vaccine activist appointed by President Donald Trump, and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, a Democrat. The two officials accused each other of politicizing the outbreak in Pennsylvania, the latest state to grapple with a resurgence of measles since the Trump administration took office.
Data from the CDC and from individual states shows that vaccine rates have been declining, with many medical organizations citing rising vaccine hesitancy as a major cause. In Pennsylvania alone, the state health department has reported 540 measles cases this year.
Georges Benjamin, chief executive of the American Public Health Association and formerly Maryland’s secretary of health, said it is “unheard of” for the CDC to publicly raise doubts about the conclusions of state and local health departments, even if the agency seeks more information.
“The secretary had no business interfering in the normal process,” Benjamin said. “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 which oversees CDC, said the public health agency “requested details necessary to determine whether measles caused or contributed to the deaths.” She cited conflicting reports between county and state health officials over what had transpired. Jamison did not comment on Kennedy’s or Schwartz’s role in excluding the deaths. Schwartz did not respond to a request for comment.
Kennedy has for years promoted the idea that vaccines are more dangerous than the diseases they prevent, despite decades of scientific evidence that they save lives. The combined measles, mumps and rubella shot routinely given to U.S. children has been shown to provide 97% protection against infection.
As health secretary, Kennedy has sought to minimize the impact of rising U.S. measles cases, now at their highest level in more than three decades. He has repeatedly cast doubt on whether the virus was directly related to the several deaths reported so far.
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The Pennsylvania health department notified the CDC of two measles-associated deaths on the morning of August 25 and then made the news public on its website, according to the Pennsylvania official, who is close to Shapiro.
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Pennsylvania did not share information about the circumstances of the deaths other than that the two individuals were unvaccinated. The CDC did not express concern over the information it had received and “signified its ongoing support for the (state health) department’s efforts,” the official said.
Kennedy called Shapiro by phone and offered federal support to assist with the state’s measles outbreak, the governor said at a press conference later that day. Shapiro said he thanked Kennedy and said the state had implemented an aggressive response, including existing support from CDC and HHS staff, but that he would let the secretary know if they needed more help.
Shapiro also said he told Kennedy that the health secretary’s past statements encouraged conspiracy theories and misinformation about the safety of vaccines, “having a negative impact on communities across America.”
Kennedy fired back on X the following day, August 26, accusing Shapiro of refusing to share information with the CDC and questioning whether the deaths were “altogether fabricated by one of the Governor’s hopeful staffers.”
That same day, the Pennsylvania health department discussed some details of the two cases with the CDC, the official close to Shapiro said. The CDC asked for health records that contained personally identifiable information about the deceased, which the state is legally barred from sharing, the Pennsylvania official said. The state offered to provide more de-identified information to CDC, but the federal agency has not signed off on the required paperwork, the official added.
A spokesperson for the Pennsylvania health department said the state has “provided all required epidemiological data to the CDC.”
On Friday, the CDC delayed its regular weekly update to its measles data website. When it updated the page on Sunday, it did not include the Pennsylvania fatalities but added an asterisk to its table on deaths with the following note: “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 CDC has not indicated what information it will use to determine whether the Pennsylvania deaths were caused by measles, since it is not working with the state health department in its investigation.
(Reporting by Yasmeen Abutaleb in Washington, D.C. and Dan Levine in San Francisco; Editing by Michele Gershberg and Aurora Ellis)
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