“Pennsylvania reports teen as fourth measles death amid feud with RFK Jr.”, 15 September 2026 (Photo via The Hill — the original report)
As it ran on the front
The Secretary's position on Pennsylvania's measles deaths has been consistent, provided you don't compare any two dates.
On August 25th, the state's health department confirmed the first measles deaths in Pennsylvania in thirty-five years — two unvaccinated residents of Lancaster County. Health Secretary Debra Bogen noted the disease had been "largely eliminated" in the state for more than three decades. That was the baseline.…
…(cont) Three days later, on August 28th, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. seized on what his own department called vague information from Pennsylvania to publicly question whether the deaths had happened as reported. By September 1st, the CDC had backed him up institutionally: the agency pulled both deaths from its weekly outbreak tally, pending review, a move The Hill described as a "radical departure" from its normal practice of simply accepting a state's numbers. The agency whose job is counting the dead spent four days not counting them.
On September 5th, four days after that omission, Kennedy accepted the count was right. He conceded that a six-week-old infant had died of measles, citing the finding of the Lancaster County coroner — the same coroner Pennsylvania had been citing all along. Having spent four days disputing that finding, the Secretary then accused Governor Josh Shapiro of having "politicized" the death. He had just finished un-politicizing it himself, which is one way to describe reversing your own position.
Eighteen days after Kennedy first raised his doubts, Pennsylvania reported two more deaths: an 18-year-old on Tuesday, a 40-year-old woman over the weekend. The state's total is now four. Nationally, it is the worst year for measles deaths since 1992 — a 35-year high, arriving on the same timeline as the Secretary's own doubt, not despite it.
The Secretary's office says it is simply following the science, the same science it declined to tally for four days in early September. Correction — it never declined. It reviewed. For four days. During which nothing about the outbreak paused to wait for the review to finish, which is generally how outbreaks work, and which is presumably why the CDC counts deaths weekly instead of whenever it feels settled about them.
Governor Shapiro now blames Kennedy by name. Kennedy's office maintains the state is politicizing a tragedy. Four people are dead who were alive before any of this got reviewed, disputed, or conceded, and thirty-five years without this many measles deaths is not a talking point either side is contesting.
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“They didn't lose track of two dead people, they filed the deaths under review — that's the con, you make the corpse fill out paperwork before it's allowed to count as a corpse. Four days of "reviewing" later he admits the coroner was right the whole time, and eighteen days after he started doubting, the death toll doubles and hits a 35-year record anyway. Doubt doesn't stop an outbreak, it just delays the invoice, and somebody's kid is the one who pays it.”
“The Secretary was exercising appropriate scientific caution, which is standard practice whenever a state reports a death from a disease we already have a vaccine for — that's just due diligence, that's not — okay, it was four days, and the finding he eventually accepted came from the same coroner Pennsylvania cited from day one, so technically we were reviewing our own agreement with ourselves. And accusing the Governor of politicizing a death he'd just finished disputing himself is, look, that's not a contradiction, that's — did I just say that? Let's move on.”
The US declared measles eliminated in 2000. The last two years carry more cases than the rest of the century combined -- the worst count since 1991. The Hill / CDC measles data, July 2026
Pennsylvania officials on Tuesday reported two additional measles-related deaths, bringing the total for the year to four. This is a record-setting year for measles in the U.S. The number of cases is at a 35-year high and there are more deaths than any year since 1992.
The US eliminated measles in 2000 — the last two years carry more cases than the rest of the century combined, the worst count since 1991. The Hill / CDC measles data, July 2026
Pennsylvania reported two additional deaths related to a measles outbreak, which later led to Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA) pointing the finger at Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.
