U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. acknowledged Friday that measles caused the death of one infant in Pennsylvania, citing the Lancaster County coroner, and said national data still do not reflect any measles deaths in 2026. [1] That is one forensic cause of death plus a still-zero public CDC death box. It is not a merged national count. Keep three ledgers: Kennedy one, Pennsylvania two, CDC none.
Friday this paper reported that Lancaster County Coroner Stephen Diamantoni named measles in a 6-week-old Amish girl's death, held a ruptured spleen on the August 14 newborn, and left Pennsylvania listing two deaths while CDC public listed none. The coroner finding is not today's news. Saturday's operating record is the federal response to that finding. Do not treat Kennedy's "only the second infant" as a finding that Pennsylvania's two-death table is closed. Do not treat it as a third death. Do not treat Kennedy's one-death post as CDC counting one.
Kennedy posted that the Lancaster coroner had now publicly stated that measles caused only the second infant's death and that the infant had Amish lethal microcephaly. Babies with that condition, he wrote, typically live about six months. This infant, he said, was about two months old. He said the coroner rejected the state's determination that the other infant died from measles. He said the National Center for Health Statistics still needed to receive and review records. "At the moment, the national data does not reflect any measles deaths in 2026," Reuters reported him saying. [1] Diamantoni's Friday file called the girl 6 weeks old. Kennedy's post called her about two months. They are the same infant. Do not invent a second measles toddler.
The other ledger is still the spleen. Diamantoni has said the newborn boy died of a ruptured spleen, not measles, even as measles was listed on the death certificate. [3] [4] Do not collapse a spleen finding into a measles cause of death. Do not collapse Kennedy's one into Pennsylvania's two.
Neil Ruhland, a Pennsylvania Department of Health spokesman, reiterated Friday to Reuters that the state had confirmed two measles-related deaths. He did not comment on Kennedy's remarks. The Lancaster coroner's office did not immediately respond. [1] Local 21 News put the state, as of Friday afternoon, at two measles-associated deaths and 577 cases, and said that as of September 3 the CDC had not recognized any measles deaths. [2] Do not re-run 577, or last week's national case tally, as the lead. The counts moved yesterday. Today's news is the unmerged death boxes.
The CDC updated its website Friday with a note that it was re-evaluating how it classified measles deaths. "This work is intended to promote consistent classification and reporting of measles deaths across jurisdictions," the site said, without saying why reevaluation was required. [1] Ars Technica, Friday afternoon, said the earlier asterisk note — that available information did not establish whether measles caused the deaths — was gone, replaced by language that NCHS "does not currently have any death records from 2026 that indicate measles is the underlying cause." [3] Do not treat an NCHS-records test as a finding that the deaths were invented. HHS, which oversees CDC, did not immediately respond to questions about recording either Pennsylvania death. [1]
Governor Josh Shapiro, on Friday, said Kennedy chose to sow doubt, play politics, direct CDC not to acknowledge the deaths, and accuse him of fabricating the tragedies. [2] [3] Kennedy answered that the emerging facts showed why CDC waited for evidence rather than allowing political grandstanding to dictate reporting, and that Shapiro had politicized the deaths before underlying causes were established. [2] That is the political file. It does not merge the ledgers.
Kennedy last month asked that two measles-related deaths reported by Pennsylvania be removed from CDC's national tally. CDC staffers had already accepted the state's characterization before that request. Public health experts told Reuters the move amounted to extraordinary political interference and an effort to minimize the risks of the virus. [1] Saturday does not relitigate that request as if it were new. Saturday is the secretary citing one coroner cause of death and still printing zero.
One infant now has a coroner cause of death of measles, which Kennedy has acknowledged. One infant still has a spleen. Pennsylvania still prints two measles-associated deaths. The federal public chart still prints none. A reader of only Kennedy's post would miss the state's two. A reader of only the state's two would miss that CDC public still lists none. Keep them unmerged.
-- NORA WHITFIELD, Chicago