Did you know that Truthout is a nonprofit and independently funded by readers like you? If you value what we do, please support our work with a donation.
Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator Mehmet Oz downplayed the GOP-fueled surge in measles infections after Pennsylvania officials announced that a newborn baby died with complications related to the disease this week.
On Wednesday, the Pennsylvania Department of Health revealed that one of the two measles-related deaths in Lancaster County this week was of a newborn baby. Both individuals were unvaccinated, and their deaths marked the first recorded deaths related to measles this year in the U.S.
Measles cases have risen to over 2,700 so far this year, the highest level in decades. The disease had been declared eliminated in the U.S. in 2000 due mostly to the effective measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccination program. Disinformation about vaccines spread by the Trump administration and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is driving the rise in measles cases, according to experts.
Trump administration official Mehmet Oz claimed, however, that the fears of measles are overblown.
“I don’t want anyone in America concerned inappropriately” about the disease, said Oz on Fox News. “We don’t know exactly what happened in Pennsylvania yet. We don’t know if the children died from measles or they had another condition that was already attacking them and they happened to get measles at the same time.”
Oz said that this is a common practice when attributing deaths related to COVID-19 during the pandemic — when many people died from pneumonia infections that were worsened by and often outright brought on by COVID infections.
This is a highly misleading comment. In announcing the deaths, Pennsylvania officials specified that the deaths were “associated” with measles. The county coroner found that the baby died from laceration of the spleen — which Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania pediatrician and vaccine safety expert Paul Offit said can be a side effect of a measles infection. Offit told the Philadelphia Inquirer that measles can cause the spleen to be enlarged, and that birth can cause the spleen to rupture.
The coroner, Stephen Diamantoni, said that the pathologist who conducted the autopsy “did not feel it was related to measles.”
Offit said that the coroner should give another explanation for the spleen rupture if it weren’t caused by measles, and further said he has had conversations with state health officials that made it clear that the “patients would not have died were it not for measles.” He added that attributing deaths to something other than measles is a common tactic of anti-vaccine advocates like those in the Trump administration.
After the deaths, Kennedy claimed, without evidence, that Pennsylvania officials announced the deaths for political reasons. He even went as far to say that “deaths may even have been altogether fabricated by one of [Gov. Josh Shapiro’s] hopeful staffers.”
Pennsylvania Health Secretary Debra Bogen said that Kennedy’s statements are untrue, and that the deaths were announced after thorough investigation to verify that both patients were infected with measles — a highly contagious and dangerous illness that had an 11 percent hospitalization rate in 2025, and a 7 percent rate in the U.S.
Of measles patients this year, 93 percent are unvaccinated or their vaccination status is unknown. Most of these cases have been among children, who are the worst affected by the disease.
The measles outbreak may soon get worse. Earlier this month, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to recommend that the MMR vaccine be split into three separate shots, citing an old, thoroughly debunked claim that the vaccine causes autism. Health experts say that this may reduce uptake of vaccinations against measles, as new vaccines would have to be developed, and splitting them up may further discourage families from trusting the shot.
Amid this move, The New York Times resurfaced a claim made by Kennedy in remarks to a large crowd in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in 2021. At that event, he joked that his childhood measles infection allowed him to “stay home and watch TV the whole week.”
“The cure for measles is chicken soup and vitamin A,” he said, in a complete lie.
Press freedom is under attack
As Trump cracks down on political speech, independent media is increasingly necessary.
Truthout produces reporting you won’t see in the mainstream: journalism from the frontlines of global conflict, interviews with grassroots movement leaders, high-quality legal analysis and more.
Our work is possible thanks to reader support. Help Truthout catalyze change and social justice — make a tax-deductible monthly or one-time donation today.
+ There are no comments
Add yours