By Yasmeen Abutaleb and Dan Levine<\/p>\n
WASHINGTON, Sept 17 (Reuters) \u2013 The Pennsylvania health department said it was requesting emergency support from the US CDC as it grapples with one of the country\u2019s largest and \u200bmost deadly measles outbreaks, according to a document reviewed by Reuters \u200con Thursday.<\/p>\n
The request comes on condition that the federal agency recognize four measles-associated deaths reported by the state, raising the stakes in a dispute with the Trump administration.<\/p>\n
The state\u2019s measles outbreak has become the focus of a standoff\u00a0between U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy \u200cJr. \u200band Governor Josh Shapiro, a Democrat. Kennedy has \u2060cast doubt on whether deaths \u2060reported in U.S. measles outbreaks since he took office were due to the virus or another cause, and instructed the CDC\u00a0not to include the Pennsylvania fatalities in a national tally.<\/p>\n
Disease experts say the move represented highly \u200bunusual interference by a health secretary in the determination by state health officials and could minimize the risks of measles in the eyes of \u2060the public. Kennedy has accused Shapiro of politicizing \u2060the outbreak in his state and of failing to \u200brequest federal help.<\/p>\n
CDC officials were not immediately available for comment.<\/p>\n
In a letter sent \u200bto Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, director Erica Schwartz on \u200cWednesday evening, reviewed by Reuters, Pennsylvania secretary of health Debra Bogen said the state had begun the process to request emergency assistance from the CDC, known as Epi-Aid.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe CDC\u2019s choice not to publicly recognize the deaths undermines our response,\u201d \u2060Bogen wrote. \u201cFor this\u00a0reason, if CDC is unable to transparently and accurately communicate information about\u00a0those measles-associated deaths, the Department will respectfully rescind our request for a\u00a0CDC Epi-Aid.\u201d<\/p>\n
The request \u2060from the state health \u200cdepartment comes after it had resisted CDC help, arguing \u2060it had the outbreak under control.<\/p>\n
Pennsylvania\u2019s outbreak has since \u200bballooned, growing \u200cto more than 700 confirmed cases across 37 counties \u200band four \u2060measles-associated deaths, according to the state health department. It is the latest state to grapple with the worst U.S.\u00a0resurgence of measles in more than three decades, fueled by rising vaccine hesitancy, and coincides with President Donald Trump\u2019s return to office in early 2025.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Yasmeen Abutaleb and Dan Levine; Editing by Michele \u200bGershberg and Nick Zieminski)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Yasmeen Abutaleb and Dan Levine WASHINGTON, Sept 17 (Reuters) \u2013 The Pennsylvania health department said it was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288166,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-288165","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\/288165","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=288165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288165\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}