The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating deaths that Pennsylvania officials reported as associated with measles, and not including them in an official tally at this time, officials said on Sept. 1.
“The two measles-associated deaths announced by Pennsylvania have not been confirmed based on the information currently available to CDC,” a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the CDC’s parent agency, told The Epoch Times in an email.
State officials on Aug. 25 said that the deaths of two individuals in Lancaster County were “related to measles” and “measles-associated.” They encouraged people to go get the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine to prevent further deaths.
The county coroner, however, said that the only death involving measles of which he was aware was of a newborn who died from laceration of the spleen. Measles did not cause the death, the coroner said.
The CDC initially said in a statement that it and HHS extended condolences to the families and communities affected by the “measles-associated deaths” and that the vaccine “provides the most effective protection against measles and helps prevent its spread.”
However, after Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. accused state officials of “fabricating” their characterization of the deaths, the CDC said it appreciated Kennedy’s “efforts to clarify conflicting information from Pennsylvania officials about whether the two reported deaths were caused by measles” and said it was working “to determine what actually occurred.”
The CDC subsequently delayed its weekly update on measles cases in the United States. When the agency posted the update on Aug. 30, it did not include the deaths in its tally.
“This week’s measles outbreaks update will not include the two measles-associated deaths reported by the Pennsylvania Department of Health on August 25 while CDC reviews additional information regarding the circumstances and causes of death,” the CDC said.
HHS, which answers press queries for the CDC, did not specify who decided to exclude the deaths from the tally at this time. Dr. Erica Schwartz recently became the CDC’s director.
No measles deaths have been reported in the United States in 2026, besides the ones reported by Pennsylvania.
The Pennsylvania Department of Health lists two deaths as measles-associated in its list of cases and deaths. “The Department consistently used the term ‘measles-associated’ in relation to these two deaths,” a spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email. “That term means laboratory or epidemiologic evidence of measles is present—in both cases there was a positive measles test—but the disease may not be assessed by the medical certifier or coroner to be the immediate cause of death.”
The Lancaster County coroner told a local outlet on Monday that his office received a report that day of another child who died with measles, and the office is investigating.
The CDC counted deaths reported by authorities in New Mexico and Texas in 2025. Local and state officials said those three deaths were caused by measles.
Kennedy has referenced an outside review of the two deaths in Texas, both among children, that blamed their deaths on insufficient treatment.