Pennsylvania measles deaths trigger feud between politicians and health officials

A dispute over two reported measles-related deaths in Pennsylvania has quickly become a political fight, with officials disagreeing over how directly the disease contributed to the fatalities.

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may even have been altogether fabricated.

State officials said two unvaccinated residents died after contracting measles. Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat who promotes vaccination, said the deaths could have been avoided through immunisation. U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a Trump administration appointee who has raised concerns about established vaccines, challenged the announcement in a social media post, saying the deaths “may even have been altogether fabricated.”

The clash has drawn concern from medical specialists who say it is pulling attention away from a growing public health problem. “Now it's turned political,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease doctor in the Pittsburgh area and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “It's no longer about getting answers and figuring this out.”

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Now it's turned political.

The United States eliminated domestic measles transmission in 2000 after maintaining high vaccination rates. Coverage has declined in recent years, falling below the 95% level considered necessary to prevent outbreaks. International health officials are due to meet in November to decide whether the United States and Mexico have lost their measles-free status.

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It's no longer about getting answers and figuring this out.

Pennsylvania’s dispute also reflects the difficulty of defining a measles death, an issue that had received little attention while cases remained rare. The World Health Organization counts a death when a person tests positive for measles, dies within a month of developing a rash, and has no clearly separate cause of death. Janet Hamilton of the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists said rising infections would bring more discussion of deaths, hospitalisations and brain injuries that the country had largely avoided for decades.

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As measles infections increase, we also need to prepare for more of the tragic complications we have largely avoided in this country for decades,