In 2000, the US declared measles eliminated after a year without continuous domestic transmission, thanks to high vaccination rates. The declaration was a public health triumph over the virus, which is among the most contagious on Earth. Prior to vaccination, measles sickened 3 to 4 million people per year, sending nearly 50,000 to the hospital, causing 1,000 cases of brain swelling, and killing 400 to 500 people.
Amid slipping vaccination rates nationwide and the spread of anti-vaccine misinformation and rhetoric, the virus has come roaring back, and the country’s elimination status is likely to be stripped. Next week (November 10 to 13), a committee of infectious disease experts assembled by the Pan American Health Organization—a regional office for the World Health Organization—will review data from 2025 and early 2026 to assess if measles has reestablished in the US.
Politicized public health
Under anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., much about the vaccine-preventable outbreaks has become political and contentious, including the definition and confirmation of measles-associated deaths. Amid the first deaths reported in Pennsylvania, Kennedy falsely suggested state officials “fabricated” the deaths and reportedly ordered the CDC to delete them from its national data.
The CDC then changed the way it counts measles deaths, abandoning a long-standing practice of reporting state-confirmed deaths. Now, the CDC relies on federal death records, which take much longer to process and are not intended to provide real-time data during active outbreaks.
The seventh, unconfirmed Pennsylvania death was reportedly of a 39-year-old woman in Franklin County; it was announced on October 12 by the county’s Coroner’s office. At the time, the coroner explicitly said the death met the state’s definition of a measles-associated death. Under the state’s criteria, a death is considered measles-associated if the person dies within 30 days of testing positive and shows clinical signs of infection, with no other significant cause for the death, such as a car crash.
Franklin County Coroner Jordan Conner listed the death as “a probable acute cardiac event due to possible complications of the measles” and reported that the woman had recently been diagnosed with and treated for measles.
In an email exchange with Ars Technica on Thursday, the state health department said it “has not found any Franklin County cases” that meet the state’s criteria but that “the investigation has not yet been closed.” The Franklin County coroner did not respond to a request for comment on the discrepancy. The Philadelphia Inquirer has taken legal action to obtain more information about the woman’s death, including her name, which was withheld by the coroner and sealed by a county judge.
This post was updated to correct the name of the Franklin County Coroner.
