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2026 is already the deadliest year for measles in the United States since the virus was declared eliminated in 2000. Four people died over the last month in Pennsylvania amid an ongoing outbreak in the state, which had not seen a measles-related death in at least 35 years. All four victims, including two infants, were unvaccinated (children do not receive their first dose of the measles vaccine until they have reached a year old). The deaths come as President Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. continue to defund public vaccination programs and push debunked claims that vaccines cause autism.

Pediatrician and vaccine expert Dr. Paul Offit warns that the four reported measles deaths — which were reported by Pennsylvania health officials but have not yet been acknowledged by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — are likely a vast undercount. He estimates that there could be “closer to 4,000” cases in the Pennsylvania outbreak. “I don’t think people realize how contagious this virus is,” Offit says. “You don’t have to have direct contact with somebody who has measles. You just have to be within their airspace within two hours of them being there.”

We also speak to Offit about the COVID-19 virus, which he says is now affecting the United States “like flu” by causing “hundreds of thousands of people to be hospitalized and tens of thousands to die, just like influenza does, every year.” Yearly flu and COVID-19 vaccinations, he explains, are “effective at keeping people out of the hospital, effective at keeping them out of the intensive care unit, and effective at keeping them out of the morgue.”

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Anjali Kamat.

Oz Dismisses Measles Concerns as “Inappropriate” After Baby Dies in Pennsylvania

ANJALI KAMAT: In Pennsylvania, health officials have reported four measles deaths just over the last month, making 2026 the deadliest year for measles in the United States since the virus was declared eliminated in 2000. Pennsylvania had not had a measles-related death in at least 35 years. The deaths include an 18-year-old teen and a 40-year-old woman, both of whom were unvaccinated, as well as a 6-week-old baby and a newborn who died shortly after birth. The Pennsylvania Department of Health is reporting 792 measles cases across 39 counties, but that’s believed by experts to be an undercount.

AMY GOODMAN: On Thursday, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gave the keynote address at a conference organized by the anti-vaccine activist organization Children’s Health Defense, which Kennedy led for nearly a decade.

HHS SECRETARY ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: Let me be clear: You have a strong and steadfast friend at the White House. We’ve accomplished in 19 months which — things that would have seemed unthinkable two years ago.

HHS SECRETARY ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: Let me be clear: You have a strong and steadfast friend at the White House. We’ve accomplished in 19 months which — things that would have seemed unthinkable two years ago.

ANJALI KAMAT: On Friday, President Trump said he would be demanding the drug companies split up vaccines into five shots with six-month intervals, and claimed it would reduce the autism rate. He didn’t specify which vaccine he was referring to, but the administration has already been seeking to break up the MMR vaccine — that’s measles, mumps and rubella — into three separate shots.

AMY GOODMAN: For more on the measles outbreak and deaths and the government response, we’re joined by Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center, physician in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Dr. Offit is also co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine, RotaTeq, recommended for universal use in infants by the CDC. His books include Autism’s False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure, as well as the book Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement........

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