By Chris Walker<\/p>\n
This article was originally published by Truthout<\/a><\/p>\n The CDC website has only recognized two of the six measles-related deaths recorded in Pennsylvania this year.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Health officials in Pennsylvania have announced another death related to measles, the sixth overall in the state and the U.S. since the beginning of this year.<\/p>\n Officials identified the person who died as a 39-year-old woman from Franklin County<\/a>. The individual was reportedly not vaccinated against the virus<\/a>. The county coroner described the cause of death as a \u201cprobable acute cardiac event due to possible complications of the measles.\u201d<\/p>\n The state is facing a large measles outbreak, accounting for about a quarter of all measles cases identified across the country since January 1, 2026. As of Tuesday morning, over 4,260 measles cases have been reported in the U.S.<\/a>, 1,152 of them from Pennsylvania alone. Both South Carolina and Texas are also reporting close to 1,000 measles cases.<\/p>\n Notably, the vast majority of people who have tested positive for measles are unvaccinated, with only 3 percent of cases affecting a person who has received the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) shot.<\/p>\n Death from measles is rare but not unheard of, with about one to three deaths occurring for every 1,000 cases<\/a>, some estimates show. The virus can also cause lifetime neurological and\/or respiratory issues<\/a>.<\/p>\n The vaccine is widely considered the best way to prevent measles infection. In rare instances where a \u201cbreakthrough\u201d case occurs (where a person who was vaccinated still gets infected), the symptoms are generally less severe<\/a>. The shot requires a higher threshold of vaccinated individuals in a given community than other vaccines<\/a> to be highly effective at stopping the virus\u2019s spread.<\/p>\n Despite a spate of deaths in Pennsylvania being recorded by state officials<\/a>, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has so far only recognized two of those deaths on its website<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Measles was once considered \u201cvirtually eliminated\u201d in the U.S., due to extremely low counts of infections identified yearly \u2014 in 2024, for instance, only 285 cases were documented<\/a>. But anti-vaxxer and right-wing movements over the past couple of decades have decreased vaccine rates among the populace, resulting in much higher numbers of measles cases over the past two years.<\/p>\n The Trump administration has also gutted programs that have been successful in getting more people vaccinated<\/a> in the past. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., himself an anti-vaxxer, has placed anti-vaxxers on health advisory panels<\/a>, and recently indicated to anti-vaccine groups that his work is not yet done.<\/p>\n \u201cLet me be clear. You have a strong and steadfast friend at the White House,\u201d Kennedy said during a gathering of anti-vaxxers last month<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n This article<\/a> was originally published by Truthout<\/a> and is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)<\/a>. Please maintain all links and credits in accordance with our republishing guidelines<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Chris Walker This article was originally published by Truthout The CDC website has only recognized two of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":306121,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-306120","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\/306120","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=306120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306120\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/306121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}