The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is still secretly counting two measles deaths that were deleted from the agency’s public measles data—a deletion that occurred at the direct request of anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., according to two reports released today. Early today, reported that Kennedy instructed new CDC director Erica Schwartz to delete the two deaths from the agency’s website.
CDC staff had reportedly already reviewed information about the deaths and accepted the characterization that they were measles-related. Still, Schwartz deleted the deaths without objection, insiders told . According to previous reporting, the two deaths were added and then removed from the CDC’s website within hours on August 30.
The deaths were of a newborn and a child, and they were reported last week by health officials in Pennsylvania. The state’s ongoing measles outbreak has sickened 540 so far, including 119 just in the last week. This afternoon, Inside Medicine reported that an internal CDC database still includes the two deaths, according to a screenshot that was reportedly verified by CDC staff.
The database, called “One CDC Data Platform,” is accessible to state and local health officials as well as CDC employees. Ars Technica reached out to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) about the discrepancy, but it did not immediately respond.
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