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As Pennsylvania continues to endure the worst of the current measles outbreaks ravaging the country, a fourth measles-associated death has now been confirmed. As of the time of this writing, the CDC’s public website tracking case counts and deaths has still not acknowledged a single one of these fatalities, reportedly at the direction of RFK Jr. himself (more on that later). And that came after Kennedy went full-blown conspiracy loon on reports of the first two deaths, which he went so far as to suggest may not even have occurred. This isn’t an exaggeration. Here is what he said at the time.
The key part:
The announcement appears to have been premature, and the deaths may even have been altogether fabricated by one of the Governor’s hopeful staffers. The Lancaster County Coroner says that it has no record of any measles deaths. State law requires that all measles deaths be reported to the coroner.
Governor Shapiro shattered tradition and violated standard public health policy by refusing to share information with the County Health Department or CDC.
As we found out later, those two deaths, both children, were very real. Then a 40 year old woman who was unable to be vaccinated due to other health concerns also died, a victim of the lack of herd immunity. That itself is an outcome of Kennedy’s years of anti-vaxxer conspiracy peddling. The CDC never counted that woman’s death, nor that of the children. The latest death is that of an unvaccinated 18 year old. As is common in deaths associated with measles, the acute cause of death was a secondary disease brought on due to the measles infection. The coroner has determined the death would not have occurred but for the deceased being infected with measles.
According to the Mifflin County coroner, Andrea L. Alcalde, the 18-year-old’s cause of death was determined to be acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM), which is a rare but known severe complication of measles. The condition is characterized by a rapidly progressing autoimmune disorder in which aberrant inflammation from an infection strips away the protective coverings of nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. Before measles vaccines were widely used, ADEM was commonly associated with measles, though other viral infections can also spur its development.
In a new release posted to the coroner’s Facebook page Tuesday, Alcalde said the death determination was made after a review of medical records and all available information. Alcalde said no other information would be released about the deceased.
This is not another post about a tragic death from measles as a result of Kennedy and his followers’ anti-vaxxer bullshit. It’s a post about how Kennedy and HHS are spitting in the cold faces of the dead by not bothering to even acknowledge their passing. Instead, Kennedy is choosing to play political games while accusing state officials of doing the same. Here is a statement released from Governor Josh Shapiro on ExTwitter.
Here it is in text:
Today, the Pennsylvania Department of Health confirmed two more measles-associated deaths after local coroners reported these individuals died from complications associated with measles. That’s four total measles-associated deaths in our Commonwealth and the first Pennsylvania has seen in 35 years. These are tragedies, and four families are grieving.
Pennsylvania is experiencing the worst measles outbreak in the country. To date, we have 693 recorded cases of measles in 38 of our 67 counties. This disease was declared eliminated in the United States in 2000- yet decades later, we are seeing it surge due to lower vaccination rates.
This serious situation continues to be made worse by RFK Jr. playing games with public health and safety. It’s long past time for @SecKennedy to stop stoking vaccine skepticism and misinformation and compromising the serious mission of the nation’s public health agencies. It is also deeply concerning to learn that the Secretary personally intervened in an otherwise administrative process to direct the CDC to not report these Pennsylvania deaths, presumably because it doesn’t fit his phony narrative.
Measles is preventable. I continue to urge all Pennsylvanians to speak with your trusted health care provider and get the best possible information to protect yourself and your family against this deadly disease.
Every single word of that is true. Kennedy’s response is to attack Shapiro for not letting him help manage an outbreak he had a heavy hand in creating. And, you should note, his response doesn’t even acknowledge the death of one of the American citizens he’s supposed to keep safe. He also lies about a change in how CDC is counting measles deaths publicly, taking no responsibility for a reporting change at an agency that he is ultimately in charge of.
In text:
Governor Shapiro has chosen to politicize this outbreak instead of implementing a unified public health response. He continues to point the finger at me and the federal government and to malign the Amish while refusing the federal assistance that might help end the outbreak.
I have offered the Governor CDC Epi-Aid, which would put CDC epidemiologists on the ground to help the state respond. Texas, South Carolina, Virginia, Kansas, New Mexico, and Wisconsin requested Epi-Aids and worked alongside CDC teams to help bring their outbreaks rapidly and successfully under control.
Governor Shapiro’s claim that I directed CDC to suppress Pennsylvania deaths is false. CDC is applying a consistent national standard rather than allowing politicians to decide which deaths appear in federal mortality statistics. CDC will report measles-caused deaths when the National Center for Health Statistics reports measles as the underlying cause based on death record information submitted by the states.
CDC’s MMR recommendation remains unchanged. I have repeatedly stated that MMR vaccination is the most effective way to prevent measles infection.
Pennsylvanians deserve accurate, evidence-based public health information-not political grandstanding.
This is sociopathic behavior. There is no concern expressed, nor sympathy, for the family of the deceased. The focus is solely on Kennedy’s own reputation and smearing Shapiro with the accusation that he is the one politicizing this latest death in Pennsylvania.
Once again, the CDC’s public site has not acknowledged even one of the four measles-related deaths that have occurred in Pennsylvania, or anywhere else should any exist. Where those deaths are to be reported, there is merely an asterisk. It appears that four dead Pennsylvanians don’t even amount to enough importance in Kennedy’s mind to be a statistic. They’re less than that to him.
The CDC’s lack of acknowledgement of these deaths are due to a change in how they report them. A change that reads like something you’d see out of the Soviet Politburo, so layered in obfuscating bureaucracy that it makes the mind spin.
The deaths are unlikely to be quickly included in national data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is under the tight control of anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Amid Pennsylvania’s deadly outbreak, Kennedy has disputed deaths, spread misinformation about the MMR vaccine, and reportedly ordered the CDC director to exclude reports of the two babies’ deaths.
The CDC has also changed how it counts measles deaths in national reporting. The agency previously relied on determinations and reporting from state and local health officials. Now, it says, it will only report death records received by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), which is a system designed not to monitor ongoing outbreaks but to track death trends over long periods. The US Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC, did not respond to questions from Ars Technica about the new rule.
That reporting change appears to have occurred shortly after the first two measles deaths in Pennsylvania, at nearly the exact moment Kennedy was first claiming Shapiro may have just made the deaths up entirely. The CDC is an agency under Kennedy’s rule as head of HHS. This isn’t so much putting puzzle pieces together as it is just observing plain facts. Whatever direct discussions Kennedy has had with the CDC over reporting these deaths, and I firmly believe he’s had those direct conversations, the reporting change still ultimately rolls up to his responsibility.
People are dying of measles and Kennedy doesn’t want to acknowledge that fact. Measles is spreading rapidly and it’s because of the decades of anti-vaxxer bullshit Kennedy has peddled combined with his abdication of responsibility as Secretary of HHS. He wants to fight online with a Governor dealing with an outbreak rather than evening mentioning the dead.
It’s sociopathic. It’s dismissive. It’s disrespectful of the dead. And it needs to fucking stop. I’m going to keep saying it: Kennedy needs to be removed from office by any and all peaceful and legal means possible.
Or else more people will die.
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