Despite RFK Jr.’s assurances that he’s absolutely killing it combating this pesky measles thing that resurfaced after decades under his leadership, the only thing that is being killed are American citizens who contract measles. While we first eclipsed the measles case count of 2025 in mid-summer of 2026, there has also been no slowdown of the disease as it rips through the country, now largely on the east coast. If you either do some math or feed the numbers into your AI tool of choice, the trend lines combined with the infectious nature of a disease like the measles will lead you to projections of something like 5,000 total cases by end of year, along with 5 or 6 deaths. That more than doubles the 2025 case count. RFK Jr. and HHS are failing us.
Part of that might because they’re too busy playing political games to actually do the work of combating this disease. The headlines around measles lately have all been around Pennsylvania, which is suffering an explosive outbreak of measles. 2 measles related deaths were reported there in the past few weeks, deaths that caused Kennedy to go full conspiracy nutbar on the internet and in the media, going so far as to suggest the deaths may not even have occurred, or otherwise weren’t actually caused by measles. The CDC publicly facing website designed to inform the public about the measles still to this day shows no recorded deaths this year from measles, even as a local coroner confirmed one death more than a week ago. This obfuscation was reportedly done at Kennedy’s direct request.
And, now, a the local coroner has confirmed a third measles-related death, this time of an unvaccinated woman in her 40s.
A 40-year-old woman who lived in Jefferson County, Pennsylvania, has died from measles complications, the county coroner confirmed Sunday. It’s the third measles-associated death in a fast-growing outbreak that’s sparked a political clash between state and federal officials.
The woman died Saturday, according to a news release from the Jefferson County Coroner’s Office, which said it was working with the Pennsylvania Department of Health on the case. The woman hadn’t been vaccinated against measles, the coroner, Greg Furlong, confirmed to CNN.
Another needless death. This woman, who also had other contributing health issues included COPD and asthma, did not have to die. The MMR vaccine would have had an extremely good chance of saving her life and preventing her from being infected with measles to begin with. I will not speculate as to why she went unvaccinated. But I don’t need to speculate to know that dropping vaccination rates in Pennsylvania combined with, or as a result of, Kennedy and others’ decades-long crusade against life-saving vaccines with made up pseudoscience bullshit was a contributing factor.
I have no doubt the death of this human being will be written off and excused by the anti-vaxxer crowd, Kennedy included. The nature of the death will be disputed. The blame will be placed on her co-morbidities. Other even wilder conspiracy theories will be dreamed up by some, all to excuse Kennedy and those of like minds from any responsibility for a death.
Already the CDC is trying to blame state officials for not accepting its tainted “help.”
In some of her first public comments about the country’s measles outbreaks, Dr. Erica Schwartz, the newly confirmed director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a statement that the agency hadn’t been notified by Pennsylvania officials of the death.
“Despite repeated offers of assistance, Pennsylvania has not requested a CDC Epi-Aid, which would deploy epidemiologists and provide on-the-ground measles outbreak support,” Schwartz’s statement, shared with CNN by email, said.
Governor Josh Shapiro already explained why he isn’t asking the CDC for help. It’s because Kennedy has tainted the agency so badly that it exists in a place beyond trust. Asking for help from the CDC means Kennedy will also swoop in and make all kinds of confused and confusing statements about the safety of the measles vaccine, the best ways to combat it, and all manner of other nonsense. We’ve seen this play out in other states. It’s making a deal with, if not the devil, the devil’s consigliere.
I truly don’t know what it’s going to take at this point for there to be a groundswell of outrage against Kennedy such that it cannot be ignored by the current administration. People are getting sick and dying and the pace of both are accelerating rather than slowing down. The department tasked with keeping us healthy is making us sick. The administration tasked with protecting American lives is contributing to their deaths. This is insane.
And it must end.