All four victims were unvaccinated, including two infants under 12 months old who were ineligible for the shot.
The toll. Pennsylvania health officials confirmed Tuesday that an 18-year-old in Mifflin County died of acute disseminated encephalomyelitis, days after a 40-year-old woman in Jefferson County died of respiratory failure. State health officials said the two deaths bring Pennsylvania to four measles-associated fatalities this year — the state's first in 35 years — across 693 confirmed infections in 38 counties.
The dispute. Gov. Josh Shapiro (Gov-D Pennsylvania) accused HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. of directing the CDC to omit the state's fatalities to fit a political narrative. Kennedy denied the allegation, countered that federal statistics only count deaths certified with measles as the primary underlying cause, and said Shapiro had declined an offer of federal field epidemiologists.
Where it stands. Neither federal nor state officials have set a date to reconcile the death records, while House Democrats have opened a formal inquiry into the exclusion.
Catch up
- Aug. 28 — Pennsylvania reported two measles-associated deaths in Lancaster County, including an infant whose coroner cited a traumatic spleen rupture.
- Sept. 1 — The CDC excluded Pennsylvania's deaths from the national tally after HHS officials questioned the state's clinical classification.
- Sept. 5 — A coroner confirmed measles killed a 6-week-old in Lancaster County as nationwide cases reached 3,134.
- Sept. 14 — An unvaccinated 40-year-old woman died of measles complications in Jefferson County, marking the state's third death.
- Sept. 15 — The CDC confirmed it only reports measles deaths when death certificates list it as the underlying cause, keeping 2026 at zero.
What Pennsylvania deployed against the current outbreak
- 130 pop-up vaccination clinics opened to administer roughly 4,300 emergency MMR doses.
- 133 hospitalizations managed across the state since the first case was detected in April.
- About 100 new infections identified across 38 counties in the last seven days alone.