The CDC and Measles Deaths

Brian Lehrer (0:10)

Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now this week's Health and Climate Tuesday section of the show, something we do every week to make sure those topics aren't buried by faster developing or more sensational news stories. You may remember that two weeks ago in this segment, we were talking about measles cases going up, while vaccination rates are going down nationwide. During that segment, our guest Julie Ravner from KFF Health News broke the news to us that Pennsylvania had just announced that morning the first two measles deaths in the US this year.

Well, that turned out to be just the beginning of a dispute between the state of Pennsylvania and the RFK Jr. Federal Health Department about whether those deaths, both of infants, should be attributed to measles or not. So let's take a close look at the arguments, what uncertainty there may actually be, and the politics as well. With me now to help sort out what we know and what we don't is Apoorva Mandavilli, who covers science and global health for the New York Times, and has now written multiple articles about this dispute. Apoorva, always good to have you. Welcome back to WNYC.

Apoorva Mandavilli (1:18)

Always a pleasure. Thanks for having me, Brian.

Brian Lehrer (1:20)

Before we get to the fight over these two deaths, can you set the larger scene from Pennsylvania for us? Because that state has become kind of the country's measles hotspot, right?

Apoorva Mandavilli (1:31)

At the moment, Pennsylvania is one of the hotspots. But as we've been seeing for the past couple of years, almost every state now has been affected by measles. And we've had large ongoing outbreaks in a variety of states across the country. And Pennsylvania, yes, has been battling this outbreak for several weeks now. And it's actually been escalating quite rapidly. So it does not look like an outbreak that's about to go away anytime soon. They've had almost 100 hospitalizations already and nearly 600 cases as of Friday.

Brian Lehrer (2:01)

So on August 25th, that was the day of that previous segment. The state health department reported two deaths to the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control, and Governor Shapiro announced them at a news conference. Here's 20 seconds of that.

Josh Shapiro (2:18)

Fully vaccinated. And just this morning, the Pennsylvania Department of Health announced the first two measles associated deaths in Pennsylvania in 35 years.

Both of the individuals were from Lancaster County, and both were unvaccinated.

Brian Lehrer (2:38)

Both were unvaccinated. Making a big point of that. Now, I will point out that a little later in the same news conference, he turned to the topic of Secretary Kennedy, and he said this.

Josh Shapiro (2:51)

Part of the reason why I was late is I've been sitting out in the parking lot talking to Secretary Kennedy, who reached out to me this morning.

And while I appreciate his willingness to offer staff to assist us, we think we're able to manage this through the Department of Health. I was very, very blunt with him, and I made very clear that his actions and the rhetoric that's coming from this administration are having a negative impact on communities across America, particularly right here in Pennsylvania, that there's real life consequences to spreading misinformation. There's real life consequences to scaring people.

Brian Lehrer (3:38)

So walk us through, Apoorva, the beginning of what happened after that news conference, because when we were doing that segment, and Julie Rovner helped break the story to our listeners at least, it seemed like open and shut. He announced two measles deaths. The governor of Pennsylvania announced them. But then what happened?

Apoorva Mandavilli (4:00)

Well, so things got very complicated and somewhat ugly, really.

So after the governor announced those deaths, Secretary Kennedy took to social media to say that the governor was jumping the gun, that he was taking giddy delight in announcing these deaths. And he accused Pennsylvania officials of potentially fabricating the deaths. He said there was no evidence to indicate that these deaths were because of measles. To be fair, I will note that Governor Shapiro said these individuals were unvaccinated, and we now know they were both infants who were too young to be vaccinated. So the fact that they were unvaccinated makes it sound like they were people who were older, who maybe chose not to get vaccinated, but in this case, they were newborns infants. And so they could not have been vaccinated.

Brian Lehrer (4:47)

But let me jump in on that point for just a second, because I know in at least one of the cases, you could tell me if it was true with the other. In at least one of the cases of these newborns, the mother was unvaccinated and also, I think, didn't just test positive for measles but had measles, right?