LANCASTER, Pa. — A 6-week-old Amish girl too young to be vaccinated died of measles in Lancaster County on Aug. 18, the county coroner said, resolving part of a two-week dispute between Gov. Josh Shapiro and U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over whether Pennsylvania has recorded any measles deaths at all.
Lancaster County Coroner Dr. Stephen Diamantoni announced the finding Friday. The infant had Amish lethal microcephaly, a genetic condition that leaves babies with underdeveloped brains and that occurs in about one of every 500 births in Amish communities, Diamantoni said. Children born with it are placed on palliative care from birth and typically live five or six months, he said, and most die of respiratory infections.
The ruling lands as the state Department of Health reported 577 confirmed cases in 37 counties on Friday — 80 more than the week before, and 37 more than the 540 the department reported days earlier. Ninety-eight people have been hospitalized. Every confirmed case is in someone who did not receive both recommended doses of the MMR vaccine, the department said.
The death exposes a gap the vaccine cannot close. The first MMR dose is normally given around a person’s first birthday; in an outbreak, physicians may move it up to 6 months. A 6-week-old has no such option and depends entirely on the people around her being immune.
That gap is also at the center of the political fight. Lancaster County Commissioner Josh Parsons, who has pressed the state for records since Shapiro announced two “measles-associated” deaths Aug. 25, wrote on X Friday that calling the infant “unvaccinated” was “deceptive” because she “would have had no opportunity to be vaccinated.” Parsons said the case was never reported to the coroner’s office, and that his staff traced it themselves to the Clinic for Special Children in Leacock Township, where providers did not consider the death unexpected.
Diamantoni has not changed his ruling on the other death, a newborn boy who tested positive for measles but died Aug. 14 of a lacerated spleen. His forensic pathologist found no swelling or inflammation of the organ, the coroner said.
Kennedy had called the state’s announcement premature and said the deaths “may even have been altogether fabricated by one of the Governor’s hopeful staffers.” On Friday he acknowledged the coroner’s finding, writing that “the facts emerging now demonstrate why CDC waited for the evidence rather than allowing political grandstanding to dictate its reporting.” Neither death appeared on the CDC’s 2026 measles death count as of Friday.
Shapiro responded on X that Kennedy’s doubt “led to a firestorm of conspiracy theories that denied these families’ pain,” and said it is “long past time for RFK to stop playing games with people’s lives.”
Dr. Paul Offit, who co-directs the vaccine education center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told CNN the coroner made the right call and that two infant deaths at roughly 400 reported infections imply substantial undercounting. “This outbreak is much bigger than people are claiming,” Offit said.
Online reaction has run heavily toward vaccination policy rather than the coroner’s science. A thread on the r/lancaster subreddit drew comments arguing the county needs its own health department; one commenter, Frogcaster, wrote that budget concerns should be weighed “with unbiased, politically neutral eyes and not through this MAHA nonsense.”
Health officials also flagged a potential exposure on Aug. 17 at the New Stanton Service Plaza on the westbound Pennsylvania Turnpike in Westmoreland County. Residents with symptoms can call 877-PA-HEALTH.