Coroner confirms measles killed 6-week-old baby in Pennsylvania

Lancaster County Coroner Stephen Diamantoni confirmed to local press on Friday that a six-week-old baby girl who died at home in August died of measles. The infant had Amish lethal microcephaly, a rare genetic condition affecting about 1 in 500 babies born into Pennsylvania's Old Order Amish community, which typically causes death around six months of age. Diamantoni confirmed that despite the underlying condition, measles was determined to be the cause of death.

This was one of two infant deaths the state health department linked to measles last week. The second case involved a newborn boy whose mother was severely ill with measles during labor. Although medical evaluations found the baby was positive for measles with evidence of infection in his lungs, the coroner said a pathologist attributed the death to a ruptured spleen rather than measles. Pediatric infectious disease expert Paul Offit has disputed that conclusion, noting that measles can enlarge and weaken the spleen, making it vulnerable to rupture during birth.

Dispute over CDC data

Both deaths became the center of controversy after Kennedy claimed without evidence that the state may have "fabricated" them. The dispute intensified after the coroner initially said he had not received death reports from the state. Following a heated exchange with Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, Kennedy directed the CDC's new director to remove the deaths from the agency's public data, even though CDC staff had already accepted them as measles-related. The deaths remain excluded from the CDC's public dashboard, though a report indicated they are still recorded in an internal database.

After the coroner's confirmation, Shapiro criticized Kennedy on social media, urging him to stop "playing games with people's lives" and to accurately report the deaths on the CDC dashboard.