The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has removed two measles deaths, reported by Pennsylvania health officials, from its national measles data, in an unusual move that breaks with the normal practice of leaving case and death determinations to individual states. Reporting by the New York Times attributes the decision to new CDC director Erica Schwartz, who took the post less than a month ago, and comes after Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr publicly clashed with Pennsylvania's governor and suggested, without evidence, that the state may have fabricated the deaths.

According to the Washington Post, the CDC's website changed its 2026 measles death toll three times over a single weekend: from zero on 29 August, to two the following day, before the two deaths were removed again hours later and replaced with an asterisk and a note stating available information does not establish whether measles caused or contributed to the deaths. The two people who died were an unvaccinated newborn and an unvaccinated child, both from Lancaster County. Controversy intensified after the county coroner suggested a pathologist attributed the newborn's death to a ruptured spleen rather than measles, though testing showed the baby was born infected with the virus and had measles-related lung damage; the parents, an Amish couple interviewed by The Atlantic, said they had no doubt their son died of measles, after the mother contracted the virus during a severe bout of illness shortly before giving birth.