When we just discussed the two recent deaths in Pennsylvania that came as a result of measles infections, we noted that there was very little information about the deceased. Some additional information has since been released, in particular the fact that one of those that died was a newborn child. This is the sort of fact that is heartbreaking to those of us with normal, functional brains.
Or, if you’re RFK Jr., it’s the kind of fact that causes you to drop the whole facade and go full on anti-vaxxer conspiracy clown.
On Tuesday, as news of the two deaths was breaking, Kennedy took to his personal X account to rail against the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and posted a link to The HighWire, a hardline anti-vaccine and conspiracy site run by Del Bigtree, a prominent anti-vaccine propagandist and Kennedy ally.
Kennedy’s post also assailed Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, who has criticized Kennedy’s anti-vaccine rhetoric and activism. Kennedy went on to blame national declines in vaccination rates on the Biden administration.
On Wednesday, as news broke that one of the deaths in Pennsylvania was in a newborn, Kennedy turned to his official X account as US health secretary to allege that “the deaths may even have been altogether fabricated by one of the Governor’s hopeful staffers.” He cited a tweet from Josh Parsons, a Republican commissioner of Lancaster County, who claimed there had been “zero measles deaths” reported in the county. The claims appear to be another old play from the anti-vaccine handbook.
Okay, deep breath, folks. Let’s start that reacting to two bodies that haven’t even gone fully cold yet by spinning out on a conspiracy theory rant about the very damned thing that could have saved them is roughly as reprehensible a thing as I could think up in my head. It’s mean. It’s heartless. It’s evil. There are people suffering right now, including people that recently lost a newborn child, and there is no quarter given by Kennedy to express sympathy for any of them. Instead, it’s right back to the pet conspiracy theories that have been debunked over and over again. I don’t need to hear from anyone ever again that Kennedy is somehow not an anti-vaxxer, or that he actually promotes the use of the MMR vaccine.
But now let’s hone in on the claim that the reported deaths may have been “altogether fabricated.” Due to the coroner’s statement that they had measles deaths in the county, you may have read that as a claim that nobody actually died here and somehow state officials were just making the whole story up. That’s not the case. The game of confusion that Kennedy is playing is much more subtle and, ultimately, stupid.
If you recall back during COVID, there were plenty of misinformation acts out there on the internet claiming that COVID death counts were inflated. Much of that was based on what the cause of death listing was on death certificates. “No, this wasn’t a death from COVID,” the bad actor would claim. “This person is listed as having died from pneumonia.” The spoiler here is that COVID causes pneumonia that wouldn’t have occurred but not for COVID.
The same trick is at play here and it’s a trick Kennedy damned well knows is bullshit. The newborn in this case died from a ruptured spleen. That was the listed cause of death. But the cause of the ruptured spleen in a newborn that was also infected with measles is, well, measles.
Paul Offit, a vaccine and pediatric infectious disease expert at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, clarified that the measles virus can be passed on in the womb or shortly after birth. The virus can cause the spleen to enlarge and rupture at birth. Offit urged that if measles wasn’t the cause of the baby’s ruptured spleen, the coroner should provide an alternative explanation.
Unlike Diamantoni, Offit said he had been in touch with state officials regarding the deaths and, based on the information he had received, he concluded that “these patients would not have died were it not for measles.”
You can think of it this way. A death certificate or doctor’s report is going to list an acute cause of death, but that may not be originating and overall cause that led to the death. This is also how AIDS works. Nobody dies acutely from AIDS. They die from illnesses that wouldn’t normally have killed them if their immune systems weren’t severely compromised from AIDS.
Would it make sense to downplay the significance of AIDS? Of course not! AIDS is still the root cause of the death, even if it doesn’t make sense to list that on a death certificate.
Again, Kennedy knows all of this. He’s playing misinformation games on top of the graves of two Americans he helped into their caskets, including an infant. There’s a level of callousness at play here that is at best near-sociopathic.
From, mind you, the person that has the American people’s health as his charge.