Amid Measles Outbreak, Pennsylvania’s Shapiro and RFK Jr. Clash Over Vaccines

The highly charged debate over the safety of vaccines, the use of aborted fetal tissues in producing them, and the Trump administration’s responsibility for a spike in previously culled diseases was on full display this week during an intense online exchange between Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Governor Josh Shapiro, whose state of Pennsylvania is in the midst of a measles outbreak that has been blamed for two deaths.Mr. Shapiro, a Democrat considered a potential 2028 presidential hopeful, held a news conference on Tuesday announcing that the two deaths in Lancaster County were the first measles-related deaths in the state in 35 years. The governor used the event to criticize Mr. Kennedy, claiming the longtime vaccine skeptic was spreading misinformation about vaccines and scaring parents.“I want every Pennsylvanian to know this: measles does not care about your county, your faith, or your social circle. It’s vital for every parent to know that if you or your kids are unvaccinated, you are at an increased risk for contracting this highly contagious virus,” he said.Mr. Kennedy responded to Mr. Shapiro’s press conference by saying that he and the governor had spoken earlier at which time Mr. Kennedy had expressed objections to the Mumps, Measles, and Rubella vaccine, commonly known as MMR, on behalf of conservatives who were concerned that they contained fetal tissue of aborted fetuses. He then shared video of an interview by the inventor of the vaccine, Stanley Plotkin, who acknowledged using aborted fetuses in the development of the vaccine. Mr. Kennedy then accused Mr. Shapiro of the “gaslighting” Pennsylvanians similarly to vaccine misinformation during the COVID era, which he said “severely damaged public faith in the vaccine program.” He added that while he asked Mr. Shapiro to provide examples of misinformation spread by his department, he could not.“I offered to point to hundreds of instances of vaccine misinformation by the Biden administration about which I had never heard him complain,” he added, acknowledging that vaccination rates have dropped in Pennsylvania during both the Biden and Trump administrations. Mr. Shapiro responded to Mr. Kennedy with his own X post, in which the sole item they agreed upon was that they did share a phone call. Mr. Kennedy’s post was “inaccurate and misleading and he is making claims that have been debunked repeatedly by actual scientists and doctors,” the governor said. Mr. Shapiro added that while the state was consulting with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, he had asked the secretary to encourage people to get vaccinated. In response, Mr. Shapiro said, Mr. Kennedy “launched a tirade — talking about fetal tissue and blaming the previous Administration for this problem. He even told me it would be better if we went back to ‘natural measles.'”Ironically, the governor ended his post by suggesting what the Make America Healthy Again coalition led Mr. Kennedy has long promoted. “The most important conversation that needs to take place now is one that should happen offline, in the real world, between parents, their trusted health care providers, and other medical experts,” he said.Pennsylvania has had nearly 400 cases of measles and 70 hospitalizations across 29 counties in the first eight months of 2026, primarily in Lancaster County. That’s compared to 12 cases in 2024. The state’s secretary of health, Dr. Debra Bogen, expressed condolences to the families of the two individuals felled by the disease, noting that their loss “underscores why the Department of Health is working diligently to provide information and protection for Pennsylvanians. The measles virus spreads quickly and easily to anyone who is not immune. If you are not protected or immune, you are at risk of getting measles.”However, furthering the debate over misinformation, one Lancaster County commissioner, Josh Parson, a Republican, questioned whether the patients died “OF measles or WITH measles.” “As of right now, we have ZERO information that corroborates the idea that there were two measles deaths in Lancaster County,” Mr. Parson wrote in his own post on Wednesday. Mr. Kennedy also stated that the Lancaster County coroner had no record of any measles deaths.“The announcement appears to have been premature, and the deaths may even have been altogether fabricated by one of the Governor’s hopeful staffers,” Mr. Kennedy said. On Wednesday, the state’s health department released more information about one of the deaths after the Lancaster County coroner, Steve Diamantoni, said his office was investigating the death of a newborn who tested positive for measles. Mr. Diamantoni said the baby actually died from a ruptured spleen and not measles.A national vaccine safety expert at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Dr. Paul Offit, told the Philadelphia Inquirer that measles can cause an enlarged spleen and birth can cause it to rupture. He said the coroner should provide another explanation for the rupture if it wasn’t caused by measles.The state confirmed an infant was among the two measles-associated deaths and that both victims were unvaccinated. It said no other information about the victims would be released to protect their privacy.

Amid Measles Outbreak, Pennsylvania’s Shapiro and RFK Jr. Clash Over Vaccines

Amid Measles Outbreak, Pennsylvania’s Shapiro and RFK Jr. Clash Over Vaccines

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