The United States could lose its measles-elimination status as declining vaccination rates and anti-vaccine misinformation fuel repeated outbreaks. A panel of infectious-disease experts convened by the Pan American Health Organization, the World Health Organization’s regional office for the Americas, will review data from 2025 and early 2026 next week, from November 10 to 13, to determine whether measles has resurged in the country.
The US declared measles eradicated in 2000 after a year without sustained domestic transmission, following years of high vaccination coverage. Before vaccines were widely available, measles infected 3 million to 4 million people in the US each year, caused nearly 50,000 hospitalizations and about 1,000 cases of brain swelling, and killed 400 to 500 people.
Public health becomes politicized
Under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has promoted anti-vaccine views, several vaccine-preventable outbreaks have become politically charged. The definition and reporting of measles-related deaths have also become contentious.
After Pennsylvania reported its first death, President Kennedy falsely suggested that state officials had “fabricated” the death and reportedly ordered the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to remove it from national data.
The CDC has since changed how it counts measles deaths, abandoning its long-standing practice of reporting deaths confirmed by state officials. The agency now relies on federal death records, which can take a long time to process and are not intended to provide real-time information during an active outbreak.
A disputed death in Pennsylvania
The seventh unidentified death in Pennsylvania was reportedly that of a 39-year-old woman in Franklin County. The county coroner’s office announced the death on October 12. At the time, the coroner said it met the state’s definition of a measles-related death.
Under Pennsylvania’s standards, a death is considered measles-related when a person dies within 30 days of testing positive, displays clinical signs of infection, and has no other significant cause of death, such as injuries from a traffic accident.
Franklin County Coroner Jordan Connor described the cause as “possible acute cardiac disease due to possible complications of measles.” The coroner also 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 that “no cases have been found in Franklin County” meeting the state’s criteria, while adding that “the investigation is not yet complete.” The Franklin County coroner did not respond to a request for comment about the discrepancy.
The Philadelphia Inquirer has taken legal action to obtain more information about the woman’s death, including her name, which the coroner withheld and a county judge sealed.
This article has been updated to correct the name of the Franklin County coroner.
Source: arstechnica.com
