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Two Lancaster County measles deaths spark dispute

August 28, 2026

Pennsylvania officials report two measles-associated deaths in Lancaster County, the first in the state in 35 years, as Gov. Josh Shapiro and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. clash.

CNN reports that Kennedy telephoned Shapiro on Tuesday to offer federal staff for the measles response, and that Shapiro turned the offer down on the view that state resources were sufficient. ABC News and Politico carry the same exchange. ABC News reports that the two people who died were unvaccinated residents of Lancaster County, the first measles-associated deaths in the United States this year and the first such deaths in Pennsylvania in 35 years; CNN and NBC News carry that account as well. ABC News also reports the state health department's working definition: a death counts as measles-associated where laboratory testing or epidemiological links show evidence of measles. Shapiro puts the outbreak at the state's largest since 1992, according to ABC News and Politico, with more than 400 cases recorded this year in health department data that NBC News also cites.

The disagreement is narrow and it matters. One account carries Health Secretary Debra Bogen's statement, made as a pediatrician of more than 30 years who reviewed the case investigation, confirming two recent measles-associated deaths in Lancaster County. A competing account reports the coroner handling the infant's case saying he does not regard measles as the cause of death, and Kennedy pressing the point that the Lancaster County coroner has no record of any measles death while state law requires such deaths be reported to him. The two positions rest on different evidence: a clinical and epidemiological case review on one side, a coroner's determination on the other. NBC News reports the coroner found evidence of the virus in the infant's lung tissue, said the case is much worse than people are saying, and is investigating further, noting the infant was born at a birthing center attended by a lay midwife without midwifery certification. NBC News also reports that infection can enlarge the spleen and raise rupture risk, and that a rupture can be hard to detect at autopsy afterward.

Politico ties the deaths to a political fight, casting Shapiro's refusal to identify who died as an opening Kennedy is using. CNN places the deaths against Kennedy's push to rewrite federal vaccine recommendations, including for the MMR vaccine, and quotes Shapiro warning of “real-life consequences to spreading misinformation.” Paul Offit of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia tells CNN the deaths were entirely preventable. Settled: the death toll, the victims' vaccination status, the case count, the outbreak's scale, and the Kennedy-Shapiro exchange. Unsettled: whether measles caused the infant's death.

Still developing

The infant's cause of death is unresolved, with a coroner's inquiry continuing and a state case review reaching a different conclusion. The identities of the two people who died are not public, and the outbreak's case count keeps climbing.

How settled the reporting is

Reported 95% · Contested 2% · Developing 3%

Sources