{"id":284586,"date":"2026-09-12T16:24:49","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T16:24:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/284586\/"},"modified":"2026-09-12T16:24:49","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T16:24:49","slug":"coroner-shares-details-of-infant-deaths-amid-pennsylvania-measles-outbreak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/284586\/","title":{"rendered":"Coroner shares details of infant deaths amid Pennsylvania measles outbreak"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK \u2014 The two\u00a0measles-related deaths<\/a>\u00a0in Pennsylvania last month involved infants, and the virus itself caused one of the deaths, a Pennsylvania coroner confirmed Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Lancaster County\u2019s coroner, Dr. Stephen Diamantoni, said he told the\u00a0Centers for Disease Control and Prevention<\/a>\u00a0of his conclusions. CDC officials, however, have not said whether they will count either death as measles-associated, and the agency\u2019s website still carries a disclaimer about them.<\/p>\n

Ivan Miller died on Aug. 14 shortly after his birth of a ruptured spleen, Diamantoni said.<\/p>\n

Mary Stoltzfus was 6 weeks old when she died Aug. 18 at her home. She was born with a genetic birth defect that left her highly vulnerable to an infection. A measles infection killed her, Diamantoni told The Associated Press.<\/p>\n

He said he was releasing the information in response to a state right-to-know law request by WPMT-TV, Fox 43.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\"\"\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tKennedy posts vaccine misinformation, spars on social media amid measles deaths<\/a><\/p>\n

The causes of death differed<\/p>\n

Diamantoni\u2019s office didn\u2019t perform an autopsy on the girl. The cause of death was determined by the doctors caring for her, he said.<\/p>\n

She had been born with a condition called Amish lethal microcephaly that causes an unusually small head and underdeveloped brain. Children with the condition typically live 6 months or less.<\/p>\n

His office did autopsy the boy, and determined he died from a ruptured spleen. Exactly how and when that happened is still under investigation, Diamantoni said.<\/p>\n

The boy was infected with measles, which is listed on the death certificate as a contributing factor. But Diamantoni said measles did not contribute to what happened to the spleen, and that measles is noted only because it was considered \u201ca significant condition\u201d that the boy had at the time of death.<\/p>\n

Neither was old enough to be vaccinated; the first dose is typically given at around 1 year of age.<\/p>\n

The deaths have received outsized attention<\/p>\n

Details of the deaths have come under unusual national scrutiny and became the focus of a furious\u00a0political battle<\/a>\u00a0between Pennsylvania\u2019s Democratic governor,\u00a0Josh Shapiro<\/a>, and officials in Republican\u00a0President Donald Trump\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0administration.<\/p>\n

Pennsylvania officials announced the deaths last month, with Shapiro stressing that vaccinations could have averted the deaths.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\"\"\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tHow we know that splitting up the MMR vaccine could be dangerous<\/a><\/p>\n

Soon after, U.S. Health Secretary\u00a0Robert F. Kennedy Jr.<\/a>, a Trump administration appointee with a history of\u00a0raising alarms<\/a>\u00a0about established vaccines, attacked Shapiro and suggested the deaths \u201cmay even have been altogether fabricated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kennedy\u2019s statements echoed ones he made last year, when three measles-related deaths were recorded.\u00a0Kennedy questioned<\/a>\u00a0whether one of the children who died was killed by measles.<\/p>\n

The health secretary oversees the CDC, and some public health experts have voiced concern about whether the CDC can still be counted on to post public health data that clashes with Kennedy\u2019s worldview.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrankly, the CDC is not to be trusted in sharing information,\u201d Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, told the AP last week. \u201cPeople are questioning their motives.\u201d<\/p>\n

CDC website still doesn\u2019t show the deaths<\/p>\n

That worry was fueled by some unusual edits to the CDC\u2019s measles webpage. At one point, the webpage noted two measles-associated deaths but then was changed to say that the CDC was not counting the two deaths until it reviewed additional information.<\/p>\n

The page<\/a>, which was last updated Friday, now says, \u201cCDC will update its reporting as additional information becomes available and relevant reviews are completed.\u201d It still doesn\u2019t reflect either Pennsylvania death.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\"\"\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tThere are already more U.S. measles cases this year than in all of 2025<\/a><\/p>\n

In a\u00a0social media post<\/a>\u00a0last week, Kennedy acknowledged Diamantoni\u2019s conclusion that one of the deaths was due to measles.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile,\u00a0Pennsylvania\u2019s measles outbreak<\/a>\u00a0continues to expand, with more than 620 cases across 37 counties this year, state officials said Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The U.S. eliminated the domestic spread of measles in 2000 by maintaining high vaccination rates, but they have fallen in recent years to\u00a0below the 95% coverage<\/a>\u00a0needed to prevent outbreaks. Meanwhile, measles infections have been surging in recent years.<\/p>\n

In November, international health officials will meet to determine if the U.S. and Mexico have\u00a0lost their measles-free status<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Mike Stobbe<\/p>\n

The Associated Press\u2019 health and science coverage receives financial support from the\u00a0AP Fund for Journalism<\/a>\u00a0and private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP\u2019s\u00a0standards<\/a>\u00a0for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at\u00a0AP.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK \u2014 The two\u00a0measles-related deaths\u00a0in Pennsylvania last month involved infants, and the virus itself caused one of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[42687,28,30,29,2303,4634,12755],"class_list":["post-284586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-infectious-disease","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-public-health","tag-states","tag-vaccines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284586","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=284586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}