Two Pennsylvania residents died from measles, health officials said on Tuesday, the first such deaths this year in the United States, which is contending with the highest number of cases of the highly infectious disease in more than three decades as vaccination rates drop.<\/p>\n
Both people were unvaccinated residents of Lancaster County, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Health, which did not release additional details, citing privacy concerns.<\/p>\n
The deaths come about two weeks after President Donald Trump unveiled an executive order that criticized the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, calling for the long-used combination shot, which provides 97% protection against measles, to be split up into three separate shots.<\/p>\n
Trump, contrary to all scientific evidence and decades of safe and effective use, said of the MMR vaccine, there is a \u201cpossibility they are quite lethal\u201d together.<\/p>\n
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has for decades argued that the MMR shot and other vaccines are linked to an increased risk of autism, a theory that scientists say has been thoroughly refuted by studies examining millions of children over many years.<\/p>\n
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro said he declined an offer from Kennedy on Tuesday to provide federal assistance for the state\u2019s measles outbreak response.<\/p>\n
\u201cI made very clear that his actions and the rhetoric that\u2019s coming from this administration are having a negative impact on communities,\u201d Shapiro said during a news conference.<\/p>\n
Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaccine activist before taking his post in the Trump administration, is now overseeing a series of studies at his Health and Human Services department examining vaccine safety, including whether they are linked to autism.<\/p>\n
Trump and Kennedy\u2019s statements and policies have sown confusion and distrust of vaccines, experts said, and have helped lead to the resurgence of a preventable disease that the U.S. had eradicated more than 20 years ago.<\/p>\n
Two unvaccinated children died from measles last year in Texas, the first U.S. measles deaths in more than a decade and a stark reversal of one of the country\u2019s major public-health achievements.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo hear about the absolute tragedy of people dying from a vaccine-preventable disease again is wrong,\u201d said Angela Dunn, former Utah state epidemiologist and previously a CDC division director in infectious disease response.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe already know how to stop the spread of measles, and it is through making sure that the communities that are most vulnerable understand that the vaccine is safe,\u201d Dunn said.<\/p>\n
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and CDC offered condolences to the families affected by the two-measles associated deaths and said the CDC will continue to follow Pennsylvania\u2019s lead and provide resources to support the state\u2019s response.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe MMR vaccine provides the most effective protection against measles and helps prevent its spread,\u201d the CDC said in the post on X.<\/p>\n
Pennsylvania has been one of the hardest hit states this year, with 393 measles cases across 28 counties so far.<\/p>\n
Lancaster County, in the southeastern part of the state, has had 185 cases, but these were the first measles deaths recorded in the state in 35 years.<\/p>\n
The United States has had 2,777 confirmed cases so far this year of a disease that had been largely eradicated in the country, a reflection of declining vaccination rates and policies under Kennedy, who has for decades spread misinformation about vaccine safety.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne might think that by now, after more than a year and a half of ongoing measles transmission and outbreaks in the United States, we would be seeing more messaging and support from the federal government,\u201d said William Moss, an epidemiology professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. \u201cUnfortunately, we\u2019re not.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two Pennsylvania residents died from measles, health officials said on Tuesday, the first such deaths this year in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272499,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-272498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}