RFK Jr. Suggests ‘Fabricated’ Measles Deaths, Spreads MMR Misinfo

In the wake of two measles-associated deaths in Pennsylvania, including an infant, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took to social media to suggest the deaths may have been fabricated and to spread debunked claims about the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine.

Kennedy, an anti-vaccine activist before becoming the nation’s top health official, posted Wednesday on X that the deaths appeared to have been announced prematurely and “may even have been altogether fabricated.”

The CDC on Thursday said it was working to determine what had occurred. “We appreciate Secretary Kennedy’s efforts to clarify conflicting information from Pennsylvania officials about whether the two reported deaths were caused by measles,” the agency said in a social media post. “These discrepancies raise important questions, particularly because the governor’s office has not provided CDC with information relevant to the outbreak and has declined our offers of assistance.”

Kennedy and Pennsylvania’s governor, Josh Shapiro (D), have been engaged in a back-and-forth since the Pennsylvania Department of Health announced the two deaths on Tuesday. Both individuals were unvaccinated and from Lancaster County.

At a Tuesday press conference, Shapiro said he had gotten a call from Kennedy that morning offering federal resources to help with the outbreak, but declined the offer. Describing the call later on, Shapiro said he asked Kennedy to join him “in encouraging people to get vaccinated and stop spreading misinformation,” but said Kennedy then “launched into a tirade — talking about fetal tissue and blaming the previous administration for this problem.”

Vaccine experts and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) say there is no fetal tissue in the MMR vaccine.

“Vaccines do not contain fetal cells,” according to an AAP page dedicated to the topic. “Some vaccines involve growing viruses in human cell cultures originally developed from two aborted fetuses in the 1960s. These cell lines are still going, so no new aborted fetuses are ever needed. Purification processes filter the vaccine during production, and no fetal tissue remains.”

According to Shapiro, Kennedy also said it would be better if we went back to “natural measles.”

“Unfortunately at a time where I needed the top ‘health expert’ in the nation to responsibly work with us to deal with this outbreak, he instead chose to go down a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories and false claims,” Shapiro wrote.

Their discussion also turned to the declining vaccination rates in the U.S., according to Kennedy. Recent CDC data show the national MMR vaccination rate among U.S. kindergarteners falling from 95.2% in the 2019-2020 school year to 92.4% in 2025-2026. And the proportion of children with vaccine exemptions rose to 4.2% this past year, up from 3.6% in 2024-2025.

“It’s unfortunately true that the government lockdowns, deceptions, manipulation, and overreach during COVID severely damaged public faith in the vaccine program,” said Kennedy.

But Jerome Adams, MD, the surgeon general during the first Trump administration, jumped into the fray to debunk that idea. “If leaders don’t understand root causes, they can’t address them. Here’s why the ‘lockdown’ explanation is simply and completely untrue,” said Adams.

“Any child aged 0-4 who missed shots in 20/21 is now school-age, and every state still enforces school-entry mandates,” he wrote. “The current drops aren’t pandemic leftovers — they’re intentional opt-outs through state exemptions.”