“Shapiro says he’ll spurn federal measles aid until CDC confirms four deaths”, 17 September 2026 (Photo via Washington Examiner — the original report)
As it ran on the front
How many people have died of measles in Pennsylvania. I asked that back in August, and I got an answer. I asked it again this week, and it came back a different shape, which is really the whole column — so let me go through it in the order I got it, and I'll apologize now for coming back to the same count as many times as I do.
On the twenty-fifth of August, the state's own health department said there had been two measles deaths, the first in thirty-five years, both unvaccinated residents of Lancaster County, out of near four hundred cases so far this year. Two. That was the shape of the answer that week.…
…(cont) On the first of September, the question came back through a different office. The CDC, in its own weekly count of the outbreak, said it would not be putting those two Pennsylvania deaths into the tally — not yet — because it was still investigating what had caused them. Same two deaths. Different answer. Not two. Not confirmed.
On the fourth, one of the two got confirmed as measles. The Hill's own phrase for how that happened was "following vocal skepticism from federal health officials." So the count moved again. Now it was one.
On the fifth — four days after the CDC said not yet — the Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., said he accepted it. A six-week-old infant in Pennsylvania had died of measles. The Lancaster County coroner did the confirming the federal government had been waiting on. His name is Stephen Diamantoni. Four days, from "not yet" to a name, an age, and a cause.
I do a version of this counting myself most weeks, out at the toll plaza, because the car's due for a new fan belt and I don't push it past forty anymore, so I've got the time to sit there. There's a sign over the far lane that tells you how many cars have gone through since midnight. Some hours the number on the sign and the number I actually watched pass don't match, and then, later, it corrects itself all at once, like it had been waiting on something. At the plaza that's called the count catching up.
By the sixteenth, Senate Health Committee chairman Bill Cassidy — a Republican, in the President's own party — was calling the administration's handling of the outbreak a "terrible legacy," citing the deaths in Pennsylvania. Deaths, plural, from him.
By the seventeenth, Governor Shapiro said he won't take federal money for the outbreak until the CDC confirms four deaths. Four. Not two. Not one. Four.
So: how many people have died of measles in Pennsylvania. I keep asking this, I know. The state said two. The CDC said not yet. The Secretary confirmed one, with a coroner's name attached to it. The Governor is waiting on four.
Oh — one more thing, before you go. The agency the Governor is waiting on to confirm four deaths is the same agency that told me, on the first of September, it wasn't ready to confirm two. Is that still where things stand?
🍺
“The CDC telling the Governor "confirm the deaths" while its own paperwork from three weeks back says it wasn't ready to count those same two people — that's not caution, that's a government grading its own quiz. Bill Cassidy, the Republican running the Senate's health committee, is already calling it a terrible legacy, and he's not talking about the shot, he's talking about the count. Either way the outbreak funding sits parked while the paperwork gets sorted, and it's the kids in Lancaster County waiting on a vaccine, not the paperwork, who don't get to wait.”
“The agency was simply exercising due diligence — you don't want to be attaching "measles" to a death before the science is done, that's just responsible governance. And when the Secretary did accept the finding, it was because a county coroner, a local official, had already done the legwork, so arguably the federal government's caution is exactly what kept this rigorous. Did I just say the system worked because the federal government didn't do anything? That's not — let me rephrase that.”
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
Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA) said Wednesday he would refuse any federal aid for Pennsylvania’s measles outbreak until the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirms the four measles deaths reported in the state. Shapiro spoke with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins following a public feud with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F.
Click in for more news from The Hill {beacon} Healthcare Healthcare The Big Story Cassidy: Trump’s handling of measles a “terrible legacy” Senate Health Committee chairman Bill Cassidy (R-La.) on Wednesday called the Trump administration’s handling of measles outbreaks a “terrible legacy,” as he cited recent deaths in Pennsylvania.
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