{"id":273780,"date":"2026-08-28T07:04:20","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T07:04:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/273780\/"},"modified":"2026-08-28T07:04:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T07:04:20","slug":"josh-shaprio-rebukes-rfk-jr-amid-pennsylvania-measles-outbreak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/273780\/","title":{"rendered":"Josh Shaprio Rebukes RFK Jr. Amid Pennsylvania Measles Outbreak"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tPennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro<\/a> publicly rebuked Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Thursday, accusing the longtime vaccine<\/a> skeptic of delivering a \u201ctirade\u201d of conspiracies when the two spoke about an ongoing measles<\/a> outbreak that has killed two people in the state.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tOn Tuesday, Kennedy took to social media, writing that at a recent press conference about the outbreak, Gov. Shapiro had falsely claimed that there was no fetal tissue in the Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR) vaccine. Shapiro is, in fact, correct. The claim that the MMR vaccine contains cells belonging to aborted fetuses is a long standing, repeatedly debunked piece of vaccine misinformation. As explained by the American Academy of Pediatrics<\/a>, \u201cvaccines do not contain fetal cells. Some vaccines involve growing viruses in human cell cultures originally developed from two aborted fetuses in the 1960s. These cell lines are still going, so no new aborted fetuses are ever needed. Purification processes filter the vaccine during production, and no fetal tissue remains.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Let’s set the record straight because @RobertKennedyJr<\/a>\u2019s post is inaccurate and misleading and he is making claims that have been debunked repeatedly by actual scientists and doctors.<\/p>\n

Secretary Kennedy called me yesterday morning to ask whether Pennsylvania needed any additional\u2026 https:\/\/t.co\/Md2VLnEhOl<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Governor Josh Shapiro (@GovernorShapiro) August 26, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tKennedy nevertheless accused Shapiro of \u201cgaslighting\u201d the public, and of wrongfully attributing a decline in vaccination rates to his policies and influence.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tShapiro responded en force, saying that when he received a call from Kennedy to discuss if there was any support the state needed from HHS, he told the secretary that \u201cwhat would be most helpful is if he would join me in encouraging people to get vaccinated and stop spreading misinformation.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe then launched into a tirade \u2014 talking about fetal tissue and blaming the previous Administration for this problem. He even told me it would be better if we went back to \u2018natural measles\u2026 Secretary Kennedy\u2019s actions to dismantle public health agencies and his language that undermines confidence in vetted medical guidance are contributing to these kinds of outbreaks.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\n\tUnder Kennedy\u2019s watch, measles cases have seen a record outbreak<\/a> in the United States. The deadly disease \u2014 which in 2000 was declared eradicated in the country \u2014 is seeing a dramatic resurgence as vaccine hesitancy continues to proliferate. So far this year, 36 new outbreaks and 2,777 cases have been confirmed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tMeasles can be especially deadly to young children, and can lead to lifelong complications including suppressed immunity to other illnesses, hearing and vision loss, and other neurological conditions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tKennedy, who has supported the restructuring of the vaccine schedule and the separation of the MMR vaccine into three different shots administered at different appointments \u2014 a decision health experts say is both unnecessary and will reduce uptake by adding needless logistical hurdles \u2014\u00a0 has floundered the public response to the outbreaks, giving sometimes contradictory statements about vaccines to the public.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIn February of last year, he was criticised after downplaying that year\u2019s record breaking measles resurgence. \u201cThere have been four measles outbreaks this year in this country \u2014 last year over 16. So it\u2019s not unusual to have measles outbreaks every year,\u201d Kennedy said during one of the earliest congressional hearings<\/a> of his term. Since then, the number of outbreaks and cases has continued to rise.\u00a0 This week, MS NOW reported<\/a> on past statements Kennedy made while visiting an Amish country fair in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, the same country where two individuals who tested positive for measles died in the past several days. Before running for office in 2024, Kennedy was one of the most prominent anti-vaccine activists not just in the United States, but around the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n

\n\tKennedy praised the religious community\u2019s low vaccination rates during a speech at the fair, telling them that they had avoided pharmaceutical companies that sold \u201cthe remedies for the chronic diseases that are coming from the vaccines\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhat is the cure for measles? [The] cure for measles is chicken soup and vitamin A, and neither of those things can be patented,\u201d he said. \u201cTo 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\tCases continue to climb, and health officials are expecting more fatalities before the end of the year. Shapiro was unequivocal in the role Kennedy has played in creating the conditions for disease resurgences being observed now, and likely to worsen in the future. \u201cThe correlation is clear: Secretary Kennedy has stoked confusion amongst parents and others \u2014 and the result has been less protection from measles and more cases.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSo what I\u2019d ask of every parent in Pennsylvania: take any information you get about vaccines and talk to a trusted health care provider about it before you make your decision,\u201d Shapiro wrote. \u201cThe most important conversation that needs to take place now is one that should happen offline, in the real world, between parents, their trusted health care providers, and other medical experts.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro publicly rebuked Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Thursday, accusing the longtime vaccine…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":273781,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[33,4913,28,30,29,7620,7618],"class_list":["post-273780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-josh-shapiro","tag-measles","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-rfk-jr","tag-vaccine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273780","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=273780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}