BS”D
After Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro announced two “measles-associated” deaths and called for vaccination, Lancaster County’s coroner said his office recorded no deaths caused by measles. The dispute has drawn scrutiny to Shapiro’s undisclosed financial ties to vaccine manufacturers and a pending regulation that would expand his health department’s authority.
-Brenda Baletti PhD
First, here is much of Brenda Baletti’s excellent August 27 article that was published by Children’s Health Defense:
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro stood in Lancaster County on Tuesday and announced two “measles-associated deaths” — the first the commonwealth has reported in 35 years — calling them “preventable” and urging residents to get vaccinated.
Within a day, the county’s own coroner publicly disputed the state’s characterization.
On Tuesday, a Pennsylvania Department of Health (DOH) press release reported two measles-associated deaths in unvaccinated Lancaster County residents. The department initially withheld the individuals’ ages, medical circumstances and immediate causes of death, citing privacy concerns.
On Wednesday, Lancaster County Commissioner Josh Parsons said on X that the Lancaster County Coroner’s Office had recorded zero deaths caused by measles — only one death of a person who tested positive for measles.
The coroner, Dr. Stephen Diamantoni, told the Philadelphia Inquirer that one of the deaths involved a newborn who died shortly after birth from a lacerated spleen. Measles antibodies were present in postmortem testing, but Diamantoni said the death was not caused by measles.
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines a “measles-related death” as a death in someone with a positive measles test that occurs within 30 days of a measles rash onset “and is not due to other unrelated causes” such as trauma. The WHO standard raises questions about how the Pennsylvania health authorities classified the infant’s death.
DOH spokesperson Neil Ruhland told The Defender that the department classifies a death “measles-associated” if “laboratory or epidemiologic evidence of measles is present,” even when the medical certifier or coroner doesn’t find measles was the immediate cause.
Pennsylvania Secretary of Health Debra Bogen said on X both individuals “tested positive for measles” and that DOH is not required to report deaths to coroners. The department has not disclosed any information about the second death.
U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Shapiro sparred over the announcement. Shapiro blamed Kennedy and the Trump administration for circulating vaccine “misinformation.” He declined help from the federal government with the ongoing measles outbreak.
After the conflicting claims from DOH officials and the coroner’s office made headlines, Kennedy said on X that Shapiro’s announcement of two measles deaths on Tuesday appeared premature and may have been “altogether fabricated” by one of his staffers hoping to score a political win.
Kennedy called Shapiro’s Tuesday press conference “a replay of the Democrats’ COVID playbook: fearmongering, misinformation, finger-pointing, and the weaponization of infectious disease fears for political gain.”
Pennsylvania has deep financial ties to vaccine industry
At the podium on Tuesday, Shapiro didn’t disclose his administration’s extensive financial relationships with vaccine manufacturers specifically, and the pharmaceutical industry broadly.
Investigative journalist Sayer Ji documented roughly $5.5 billion in public and private investment in commonwealth-backed pharmaceutical and life-sciences companies under Shapiro, including about $300 million in direct support from Pennsylvania.
That total includes a $10.65 million grant Shapiro personally announced to flu vaccine manufacturer Sanofi Pasteur on June 26 — 60 days before the Lancaster press conference — and $21 million in commonwealth support for a GSK vaccine-manufacturing expansion in Lancaster County itself.
The GSK expansion project is just minutes from where the press conference was held. Ji reported that the project is “the largest Commonwealth-supported economic development project in Lancaster County history.”
Additional commonwealth-backed investment has gone to Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson/Janssen Biotech, Eurofins Lancaster Laboratories (also in Lancaster County), and Innovate in PA 2.0, a tax-credit program supporting startup capital and a statewide clinical trial network.
On Oct. 1, 2025, Shapiro signed an executive order stating that Pennsylvania “manufactures more than one-half of all vaccines administered in the United States.”
The order was intended to position the state to maintain its own vaccine guidance independent of federal recommendations, should the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention alter the childhood vaccine schedule.
DOH and governor work to expand health department powers
While the reports of measles deaths drew national attention, the Shapiro administration was separately advancing a proposed rewrite of the commonwealth’s communicable and non-communicable disease regulation.
The draft regulation was published Aug. 8, with public comment open through Sept. 21 — meaning the two unresolved measles deaths became national news 17 days after the regulation’s publication.
The proposed rule would significantly expand the DOH’s authority. The proposal includes expanding the list of reportable diseases from 52 to 125 and adding an open-ended “emerging disease” category.
It also calls for broadening immunization-reporting requirements and formalizing access to medical records, facilities and schools during investigations.
Provision 27.60 of the proposed regulation gives the DOH authority to order disease-control measures — like masking, social distancing and vaccine mandates — for disease “prevention, containment or mitigation.”
Researcher James Lyons-Weiler, Ph.D. said the proposed rewrite appears specifically designed to give the state the legal authority that it lacked to implement such measures during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Link to Brenda Baletti’s full article: https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/coroner-contradicts-pennsylvania-health-officials-measles-did-not-cause-newborn-death/
Celia Farber noted that there is a pattern: Pennsylvania is waging a WAR on the Amish, on exemptions, on religion, on home schooling, and on home births. Here are some excerpts of her August 28 article, including fascinating posts by the Lancaster County Commissioner Josh Parsons, and the link to Celia’s full piece at the end:
It wasn’t just a little deceptive, a little wrong. Its entire proto-premises were wrong; the thing it said happened had not only not happened but could, in fact, not happen.
There is no such thing as a newborn baby dying of measles, at birth, vaccinated or not.
Infants are not “vaccinated” for measles or anything else within hours of birth, especially while dying of a ruptured spleen—a claim I also would like to know more about. Any time they are less concerned with this family’s “privacy.”
We’re starting with the alleged infant, as the alleged second “individual” may be a ghost or hallucination.
RED PSY OP FLAGS ON STEROIDS
“I’ve received no information from any of them.”
“You don’t just get to say that this happened, and then everything else around it is top secret.”
—Josh Parsons
Lancaster County Commissioner Josh Parsons, in this 4 minute clip, walks through his investigation, and his futile attempts—repeated calls over several days— to get any replies (not even stonewalling) from:
—Gov. Shapiro’s office
—LGH Penn Medicine (Shapiro was there, on the ground, on the 25th.)
—Brian Pasquale, Director Of Public Safety (was at least reachable, said he had no information.)
Those who did speak to Parsons, at length, were officials at the coroner’s office, and the coroner himself—Dr. Stephen Diamantoni. They all said no measles deaths had occurred.
Josh Parsons’ corrective commentary on X here.
Parts of it here:
No Such Thing
In another post, Dr. James Thorp called a ruptured spleen in a newborn after delivery is “extremely rare.”
But let’s allow that it happened.
How did this particular baby (boy? girl?) who died at birth, at home, die of something so extremely rare, and how was it targeted for a propaganda campaign? Why are the parents vanished, along with all details, as all the propaganda operators bray like mules in the press but refuse to speak to the County Commissioner, or quote the findings of the Coroner?
The rest of Celia Farber’s article is here:
https://celiafarber.substack.com/p/battleground-lancaster-the-measles
May G-d protect us from the evil ones’ evil plans.
Thank you again Brucha!!