The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not included two measles-associated deaths reported by Pennsylvania health officials in its official outbreak tally for three consecutive weeks, as of September 11, 2026. Cape Flats News has not independently verified these claims; this report is based on accounts from NPR, Bloomberg, CNN, and The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Pennsylvania’s Department of Health says it notified the CDC about the deaths on the morning of August 25, 2026, both involving unvaccinated individuals. Press secretary Neil Ruhland told CNN the state provided all required epidemiological data, but the deaths were excluded when the CDC finally posted its delayed weekly update on August 30, and again on September 4 and September 11.
Instead of recording the deaths, the CDC’s data page carries an asterisk and a footnote stating “available information does not establish whether measles caused or contributed to the (Pennsylvania) deaths or whether the individuals died from other causes while infected with measles.” The move followed public questioning by US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a long-time vaccine sceptic, who challenged the state’s cause-of-death determination.
“Red flag. Red alert,” Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, former director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told NPR. “When they raise doubt on the adjudication that a state may have made around a death, that is highly problematic. This is dangerous.”
The dispute has deepened fears of political interference at an agency already rocked by resignations of senior leaders including Daskalakis and former chief medical officer Dr. Debra Houry, who left in 2025 citing interference. Both the CDC and the Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to NPR’s repeated requests for comment.
“What we have been seeing, that got amplified even more with these measles cases, is a breakdown in the coordination and trust between states and the federal government,” said Dr. Anne Zink, senior fellow at the Yale School of Public Health and former Alaska chief medical officer.
Public health experts warn the controversy erodes confidence in national disease data just as the US faces its worst measles resurgence in decades. The implications reach beyond American borders, including South Africa, where the National Institute for Communicable Diseases relies on global surveillance data to track threats.
The South African National Department of Health recently battled its own measles outbreaks in provinces like Limpopo and Mpumalanga, and vaccine hesitancy remains a concern. Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, told NPR that if such data manipulation happens with measles, “the question is: Who can we rely on for the data on a national level. More people will get sick and more people because they won’t know what to do. They won’t know who to trust.”
It is still unknown whether the CDC will ever include the Pennsylvania deaths in its official count, and the agency has not given a timeline for any review. Cape Flats News will check again when the CDC is due to release its next weekly measles update on Friday, September 18, 2026.