There’s a terrible irony baked into Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s latest feud. For the last several days, he’s been engaged in an angry back and forth with Gov. Josh Shapiro over the Pennsylvania Democrat’s announcement Tuesday of two measles-associated deaths in his state. According to the state’s Department of Health, neither of the two individuals were vaccinated against the disease.
After all, here we have a man who has made a literal career out of promoting skepticism toward scientific evidence and spreading misinformation.
Kennedy has taken offense at Shapiro’s “unseemly rush” to hold a press conference in Pennsylvania’s Lancaster County, as he put it in a post on X. The secretary even said that “the deaths may even have been altogether fabricated by one of the Governor’s hopeful staffers.” Such a major accusation would be eyebrow-raising from anyone but is particularly galling coming from Kennedy. After all, here we have a man who has made a literal career out of promoting skepticism toward scientific evidence and spreading misinformation. But his attacks on Shapiro can’t deflect from the role he’s played in encouraging Americans to reject vaccination.
“The performance was a replay of the Democrats’ COVID playbook: fearmongering, misinformation, finger-pointing, and the weaponization of infectious disease fears for political gain,” Kennedy wrote in his X post. He also accused Shapiro of refusing to share information about the deaths with the Centers for Disease Control or the County Health Department. Shapiro pushed back in his own post to “set the record straight,” writing that in a phone call ahead of Tuesday’s press conference, he told Kennedy that “what would be most helpful is if he would join me in encouraging people to get vaccinated and stop spreading misinformation.”
Two factors are driving this online tit-for-tat. First is the term “measles-associated deaths.” Kennedy and Lancaster County Commissioner Josh Parsons, a Republican, have suggested the phrasing means Shapiro is overhyping these two deaths. The Pennsylvania Health Department, along with Shapiro’s office, told Politico in an emailed statement that it “uses the term ‘measles-associated’ when laboratory or epidemiologic evidence of measles is present, but the disease may not be assessed by the medical certifier or coroner to be the immediate cause of death.”
The other is a claim from Parsons that the county coroner’s office “currently has ZERO reported cases where measles is the immediate cause of death,” and only one death of a person who had measles. It feels silly to have to say, but regardless of whether it was the direct cause of death or not, the mere presence of measles in the community is a major problem. That’s especially true when vaccination rates have been falling across the U.S. And the Pennsylvania Health Department did confirm to Politico that “one of the two deaths is the one Parsons referred to: an infant with a positive measles test.”
It is also difficult to take Kennedy’s supposed umbrage seriously after watching footage of his 2021 visit to Lancaster County.
“What is the cure for measles? Cure for measles is chicken soup and vitamin A, and neither of those things can be patented,” he told the crowd at an Amish country fair. (Unsurprisingly, his claims about the miraculous powers of vitamin A have not stood up to scientific scrutiny.) Kennedy went on to praise the attendees for rejecting vaccination and warned: “To all of you people who are Amish in here today, they are coming for you because they cannot stand the fact that you are healthy.”
Amazingly, Kennedy even wants credit for the current measles outbreak not being worse. During a press conference Wednesday, he said that the U.S. is “doing a better job than any country in the world in controlling the measles outbreak.” Left unsaid in that claim is that America’s low case rate is both almost entirely due to our extremely high vaccination rate. In contrast, countries with the highest ongoing measles outbreaks are those where it is exceedingly difficult to vaccinate vulnerable populations. The CDC’s website even says that new outbreaks in the U.S. are largely due to “unvaccinated international travelers.”
Amazingly, Kennedy even wants credit for the current measles outbreak not being worse.
Despite Kennedy’s accusation of “fabrication,” Pennsylvania Health Secretary Debra Bogen posted on X Wednesday that her department’s “Epidemiology team thoroughly investigated and verified both individuals tested positive for measles.” Kennedy’s effort to undercut those findings is only prompting further mistrust toward public health officials. It’s maddening then to hear him claim the opposite, that his work is meant to restore the public’s trust that he and his allies worked so hard to erode.
The reality is that Kennedy’s attacks on vaccine safety and efforts to pare back vaccine requirements are actively harmful. Measles cases have surged in the U.S. to their highest in 30 years. The proper response to the deaths in Pennsylvania would be to offer increased monitoring assistance and stress the importance of vaccination to prevent further spread. Kennedy’s PR offensive against Shapiro shows how misguided his priorities remain.
The post RFK Jr. accusing Shapiro of lying about measles deaths is truly galling appeared first on MS NOW.
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