According to a Reuters article, U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. instructed the newly appointed CDC director, Erica Schwartz, to remove references to two Pennsylvania measles-related deaths from the CDC’s online tally after questioning whether measles contributed to the fatalities. This request came after CDC staff had already accepted the state’s characterization of the deaths as linked to measles, as stated by a Pennsylvania official. Schwartz complied with Kennedy’s directive without objection, according to three anonymous sources familiar with the matter ¹.

The article highlights that the move followed a contentious social media exchange between Kennedy, a long-time anti-vaccine activist appointed by President Donald Trump, and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, a Democrat. Both officials accused each other of politicizing the measles outbreak in Pennsylvania, which has reported 540 cases this year. Georges Benjamin, CEO of the American Public Health Association, criticized Kennedy’s interference, calling it “unheard of” for the CDC to publicly doubt state and local health department conclusions and suggesting that Kennedy has an anti-vaccine agenda ¹.

Footnotes

1. Yasmeen Abutaleb and Dan Levine, “Exclusive: Kennedy asked to remove Pennsylvania measles death from CDC tally, sources say,” Yahoo News, September 3, 2023. https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/exclusive-kennedy-asked-remove-pennsylvania-100216366.html ↩ ↩²

This is a summary. Read the original at yahoo.com.