Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ordered the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to remove two Pennsylvania deaths from its online measles tally after questioning whether the disease contributed to them, according to an exclusive new report.
The Trump administration official issued the directive even though CDC staff had already accepted Pennsylvania’s determination that the deaths were linked to measles, Reuters reported Thursday. Newly appointed CDC Director Eric Schwartz reportedly carried out the order without objection.
Such interference is “unheard of,” Georges Benjamin, head of the American Public Health Association and a former Maryland health secretary, told Reuters.
"The secretary had no business interfering in the normal process," Benjamin said. "He has an anti-vaccine agenda and he's using this to play out his anti-vaccine agenda.”