ADRIAN FLORIDO, HOST:
This week, Pennsylvania officials reported two measles-related deaths. They are the first deaths linked to the virus in the U.S. this year and the first in Pennsylvania in more than three decades. But those deaths have now become wrapped up in politics. All of this comes as the country is in the midst of a record-setting number of measles cases for the second year in a row. Here to tell us more is NPR's Maria Godoy. Hi, Maria.
MARIA GODOY, BYLINE: Hi, Adrian.
FLORIDO: What exactly is going on in Pennsylvania?
GODOY: A lot. So Pennsylvania has a rapidly growing measles outbreak that's spread to more than two dozen counties. The state has reported 424 cases so far this year, including 94 new cases just this week. Seventy-three people have been hospitalized. And this week, health officials in the state reported two deaths associated with measles in Lancaster County, which is the epicenter of the outbreak. The state initially declined to share any information about the deaths because of privacy concerns. But then yesterday, the Department of Health revealed that one of the deaths was in a newborn.
FLORIDO: And so where does politics come into all of this?
GODOY: Well, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. publicly questioned whether the deaths were really attributable to measles. Kennedy has a long history as a vaccine skeptic. And when Pennsylvania's Democratic governor, Josh Shapiro, announced the two measles deaths on Tuesday, Shapiro said Kennedy was spreading misinformation about vaccine safety and scaring parents. Kennedy in turn said Shapiro's office hasn't provided the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention with details about the deaths. He said that Governor Shapiro's office may have fabricated the deaths to score political points. Yeah.
And then the Lancaster County Coroner's Office added fuel to the fire by saying that the newborn who died tested positive for measles, but the primary cause of death was a laceration of the spleen. On social media, anti-vaccine voices have pointed to that to say, hey, see, it wasn't measles.
FLORIDO: Maria, this sounds a lot like what happened during the COVID pandemic, when people were questioning whether people dying were dying because of COVID or whether they had COVID but had died of some other primary cause.
GODOY: Right. You know, I spoke with Dr. Amesh Adalja. He's an infectious disease specialist based in Pennsylvania. He says that kind of questioning is very much in the playbook of the anti-vaccine movement. He says measles could very well have contributed to the infant's ruptured spleen, although we need more information. But he says all this back and forth is obscuring the bigger picture, which is that Pennsylvania is battling a very real and very fast moving outbreak. Here's Adalja.
AMESH ADALJA: I think that this is only going to get worse before it gets better, and there's going to be more interaction amongst unvaccinated children. It's actually happening probably right now as we're speaking, as schools are opening all over the state.
GODOY: Kindergarten vaccination rates against measles in the state have fallen below the 95% threshold considered necessary to stop measles from spreading. And it's not just in Pennsylvania. Vaccination rates have slipped below that threshold nationwide, and several states have large outbreaks right now.
FLORIDO: So what does the new CDC director have to say about all of this?
GODOY: Yeah. CDC director Erica Schwartz has been on the job less than a month. So far, she hasn't said much publicly about the measles outbreaks. Meanwhile, the U.S. has reported nearly 2,800 cases so far this year, which is more than all of last year, and we still have four months to go. Florida, Texas and Utah all have active outbreaks with more than 100 cases right now. Measles is the most contagious disease known. Nine out of 10 unvaccinated people will catch it if they're exposed, and the more cases there are, the more likely we'll see deaths. You know, if you're in a place where measles is spreading, it's not too late to get yourself or your kids vaccinated.
FLORIDO: That's NPR's Maria Godoy. Thanks, Maria.
GODOY: My pleasure.
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