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Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro stood in Lancaster County on Tuesday and announced two “measles-associated deaths” — the first the commonwealth has reported in 35 years — calling them “preventable” and urging residents to get vaccinated.
Within a day, the county’s own coroner publicly disputed the state’s characterization.
On Tuesday, a Pennsylvania Department of Health (DOH) press release reported two measles-associated deaths in unvaccinated Lancaster County residents. The department initially withheld the individuals’ ages, medical circumstances and immediate causes of death, citing privacy concerns.
On Wednesday, Lancaster County Commissioner Josh Parsons said on X that the Lancaster County Coroner’s Office had recorded zero deaths caused by measles — only one death of a person who tested positive for measles.
The coroner, Dr. Stephen Diamantoni, told the Philadelphia Inquirer that one of the deaths involved a newborn who died shortly after birth from a lacerated spleen. Measles antibodies were present in postmortem testing, but Diamantoni said the death was not caused by measles.
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines a “measles-related death” as a death in someone with a positive measles test that occurs within 30 days of a measles rash onset “and is not due to other unrelated causes” such as trauma. The WHO standard raises questions about how the Pennsylvania health authorities classified the infant’s death.
DOH spokesperson Neil Ruhland told The Defender that the department classifies a death “measles-associated” if “laboratory or epidemiologic evidence of measles is present,” even when the medical certifier or coroner doesn’t find measles was the immediate cause.
Pennsylvania Secretary of Health Debra Bogen said on X both individuals “tested positive for measles” and that DOH is not required to report deaths to coroners. The department has not disclosed any information about the second death.
U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Shapiro sparred over the announcement. Shapiro blamed Kennedy and the Trump administration for circulating vaccine “misinformation.” He declined help from the federal government with the ongoing measles outbreak.
After the conflicting claims from DOH officials and the coroner’s office made headlines, Kennedy said on X that Shapiro’s announcement of two measles deaths on Tuesday appeared premature and may have been “altogether fabricated” by one of his staffers hoping to score a political win.
Kennedy called Shapiro’s Tuesday press conference “a replay of the Democrats’ COVID playbook: fearmongering, misinformation, finger-pointing, and the weaponization of infectious disease fears for political gain.”
Pennsylvania has deep financial ties to vaccine industry
At the podium on Tuesday, Shapiro didn’t disclose his administration’s extensive financial relationships with vaccine manufacturers specifically, and the pharmaceutical industry broadly.
Investigative journalist Sayer Ji documented roughly $5.5 billion in public and private investment in commonwealth-backed pharmaceutical and life-sciences companies under Shapiro, including about $300 million in direct support from Pennsylvania.
🧵 On June 26, PA Gov. Josh Shapiro handed a vaccine manufacturer a $10.6M grant.
60 days later he stood in Lancaster County blaming RFK Jr. for two “measles-associated” deaths.
Nobody at the podium mentioned the money.
Receipts below. Every claim sourced. 👇… pic.twitter.com/hlUGXOangv
— Sayer Ji (@sayerjigmi) August 27, 2026
That total includes a $10.65 million grant Shapiro personally announced to flu vaccine manufacturer Sanofi Pasteur on June 26 — 60 days before the Lancaster press conference — and $21 million in commonwealth support for a GSK vaccine-manufacturing expansion in Lancaster County itself.
The GSK expansion project is just minutes from where the press conference was held. Ji reported that the project is “the largest Commonwealth-supported economic development project in Lancaster County history.”
Additional commonwealth-backed investment has gone to Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson/Janssen Biotech, Eurofins Lancaster Laboratories (also in Lancaster County), and Innovate in PA 2.0, a tax-credit program supporting startup capital and a statewide clinical trial network.
On Oct. 1, 2025, Shapiro signed an executive order stating that Pennsylvania “manufactures more than one-half of all vaccines administered in the United States.”
The order was intended to position the state to maintain its own vaccine guidance independent of federal recommendations, should the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention alter the childhood vaccine schedule.
DOH and governor work to expand health department powers
While the reports of measles deaths drew national attention, the Shapiro administration was separately advancing a proposed rewrite of the commonwealth’s communicable and non-communicable disease regulation.
The draft regulation was published Aug. 8, with public comment open through Sept. 21 — meaning the two unresolved measles deaths became national news 17 days after the regulation’s publication.
The proposed rule would significantly expand the DOH’s authority. The proposal includes expanding the list of reportable diseases from 52 to 125 and adding an open-ended “emerging disease” category.
It also calls for broadening immunization-reporting requirements and formalizing access to medical records, facilities and schools during investigations.
Provision 27.60 of the proposed regulation gives the DOH authority to order disease-control measures — like masking, social distancing and vaccine mandates — for disease “prevention, containment or mitigation.”
Researcher James Lyons-Weiler, Ph.D., noted in his Substack analysis that the preamble to the proposed rule specifically mentions a lawsuit that struck down school mask mandates.
Lyons-Weiler said the proposed rewrite appears specifically designed to give the state the legal authority that it lacked to implement such measures during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“In other words, the COVID-era legal defeat is not an incidental historical reference. It is part of the rationale for rewriting the rule,” he said.
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‘Vaccines are on the ballot’
In a separate Substack post, Ji suggested that the political response to the Lancaster deaths didn’t emerge organically. He said that a well-resourced messaging apparatus was already positioned to convert the measles announcement into a national narrative.
Six days before Pennsylvania’s announcement, Protect Our Care — a Democratic Party health advocacy group staffed by former Democratic National Committee members, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services counselors and others — and 314 Action released results of polling designed to test vaccine-related messages for their power to damage Republicans electorally.
According to Ji, participants were presented with claims about measles returning, the Trump administration disregarding scientific evidence and Republicans weakening childhood vaccine recommendations.
The poll showed that 50%-54% of respondents said the messages lowered their opinion of GOP members of Congress.
Protect Our Care concluded that “vaccines are on the ballot” and that vaccine policy was the GOP’s greatest midterm weakness. In an Aug. 20 newsletter, the organization wrote: “needlessly putting kids in the hospital or morgue is a political loser.”
Ji reported that when Pennsylvania announced the deaths on Aug. 25, Protect Our Care immediately stated that Trump and Kennedy had fueled the crisis, “resulting in” the deaths. President Brad Woodhouse said, “Trump and RFK Jr. have blood on their hands … Mr. Kennedy, fucking resign already.”
Protect Our Care is not a charity; it is a lobbying group. Ji said that Shapiro’s office has worked closely with Protect Our Care since 2020, and noted the group’s own website describes its work as using a “campaign mentality” and running “tightly orchestrated, narrative-shaping initiatives.”
Ji was careful to frame this as raising questions rather than proving coordination. The timeline shows that the messaging infrastructure existed and was quickly activated, not that its timing or content were coordinated in advance with the state’s announcement, Ji said.
The information together — the coroner’s dispute over cause of death, the unmentioned funding to vaccine manufacturers, the regulation expanding the department’s own authority, and a political messaging operation that moved within hours — raises concerns about the deaths and Pennsylvania’s response.
Parsons continues to demand answers on X and to accuse the Pennsylvania health officials of “deception.”
Related articles in The Defender
- 2 ‘Measles-Associated’ Deaths in Pennsylvania Spark Media Blitz — But Officials Won’t Release Details
- Trump Signs Executive Order Aimed at Reducing Number of Childhood Vaccines
- Infectious Disease Hype Is About Creating Markets, Not Real Health Threats
- No Proof MMR Vaccine Is ‘Safer’ than Measles, Mumps or Rubella Infection, Physician Group Says
- Texas Reports 8-Year-Old Died of ‘Measles Pulmonary Failure,’ CHD Requests Medical Records
- Media Panic Over Measles Distracts From Real Threats to Kids’ Health and Safety
