The US has confirmed 3,134 measles cases in 2026, the worst year for the disease since 1991. Pennsylvania is the epicenter: 582 confirmed cases across 37 counties as of September 8, including 102 hospitalizations. Two unvaccinated infants in Lancaster County's Amish community died. Gov. Josh Shapiro announced their deaths on August 25 as the state's first measles-associated deaths in 35 years. The county coroner disputed the first death, attributing it to a ruptured spleen. On September 4, the same coroner confirmed measles killed the second infant, a 6-week-old girl. The CDC's official national tally still doesn't count either one.

1. HHS Secretary RFK Jr. Ordered the Deaths Struck From the Record

Kennedy says the state jumped the gun, and he's kept the federal count at zero even after a coroner confirmed one death.

Kennedy questioned whether the deaths happened at all. After the coroner disputed the first case, Kennedy suggested a Shapiro staffer may have "altogether fabricated" the deaths.

He had the CDC pull Pennsylvania's deaths from its national count. Kennedy asked new CDC director Dr. Erica Schwartz to remove both deaths from the agency's online measles tally. The CDC delayed its regular Friday update, then posted it with a note saying it wouldn't include the deaths "while CDC reviews additional information."

Kennedy accepted the second death personally, but not on the record. Kennedy acknowledged the second death the same day the coroner confirmed it. The CDC's official tally still didn't change. He said the episode "demonstrate[s] why CDC waited for the evidence rather than allowing political grandstanding."

2. Gov. Josh Shapiro Says Kennedy Is Burying a Body Count

Shapiro says the federal government is hiding real deaths to protect a political narrative.

Shapiro says Kennedy chose politics over the coroner's own findings. He said: "Instead of listening to the real doctors and public health experts, RFK chose to sow doubt, play politics, direct the CDC not to acknowledge these deaths, and even accuse me of fabricating these tragedies."

He points to the national trend as proof of the stakes. Measles cases nationally jumped from 285 in all of 2024 to nearly 3,000 in the first eight months of 2026 — a timeline Shapiro says lines up with Kennedy's tenure at HHS.

Pennsylvania is vaccinating anyway. The state has run more than 120 pop-up MMR clinics and administered nearly 4,000 doses through them since April, on top of 5,700-plus doses statewide.

3. Former CDC Leaders Say This Isn't About Politics, It's About Protocol

Nonpartisan former federal health officials say the CDC broke its own rules, regardless of who's right about the deaths.

A former CDC deputy director calls it politicization, full stop. Dr. Nirav Shah, the CDC's former principal deputy director, said the move to exclude the Pennsylvania deaths is "the definition of the politicization of public health."

A former CDC chief medical officer says the process itself broke down. Dr. Deb Houry called it "a big deviation in protocol" — the CDC's death count normally just follows what states report, without the secretary's office vetting it first.

A Harvard physician says Schwartz failed her first test. Dr. Jeremy Faust said Schwartz's decision to comply with Kennedy's request meant she'd failed "her first major test as CDC director."

4. Major Medical Groups Have Stopped Waiting on the CDC Entirely

Pediatricians, family doctors, and OB-GYNs wrote their own vaccine guidance because they no longer trust the federal version.

The AAP says the federal schedule fell behind the science. After the Trump administration directed the CDC to trim recommended childhood vaccines to match a review of 20 other countries, the American Academy of Pediatrics said the new schedule "depart[s] from longstanding medical evidence."

Four major medical groups published their own recommendations instead. The AAP, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the Infectious Diseases Society of America each issued independent guidance with help from the Vaccine Integrity Project.

Their reasoning was blunt. The Vaccine Integrity Project's Dr. Bruce Gellin put it this way: "We cannot allow the breakdown of the federal process to create a vacuum in evidence-based vaccine guidance."

Where This Lands

Pennsylvania and its own county coroner say a baby died of measles. The CDC's official national count says that didn't happen — because the health secretary told the agency to leave it out, even after the coroner's finding came in. Shapiro calls that burying the truth to protect a narrative. Kennedy calls it waiting for evidence instead of "political grandstanding." Former CDC officials with no stake in either state's politics say the bigger problem is that the agency broke its own process to get there. None of that has stopped the outbreak, which keeps growing regardless of how anyone counts it.

Sources