Pennsylvania commissioner accuses Shapiro of 'deceptive' measles death framing as RFK Jr blasts Dem governor - Fox News

Joshua Parsons, one of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania's commissioners, accused Gov. Josh Shapiro of deception for framing an infant's death as being from measles after the county coroner said the baby did not die from the disease.

A Pennsylvania county commissioner is challenging Gov. Josh Shapiro’s announcement of two measles-associated deaths, fueling a growing clash with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the state’s outbreak swells to 460 confirmed cases across 31 counties.

Joshua Parsons, one of three Lancaster County commissioners, accused Shapiro of being intentionally "deceptive" during a news conference earlier this week, when the Democratic governor pointed to two "measles-related deaths" in the county.

"Well, the governor, in the press conference, they said they were measles-associated deaths, but it was framed, and very much the underlying assertion to it, was that these were measles deaths," Parsons told Fox News Digital.

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During a news conference Tuesday alongside Dr. Debra Bogen at Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health Hospital, Shapiro announced the deaths of two people who were unvaccinated for measles.

"Today, we see the consequences of a lack of immunizations in the first measles-associated deaths that our commonwealth has seen in 35 years," Shapiro said.

Josh Shapiro, governor of Pennsylvania, during the Pennsylvania Defense and Innovation Summit in Carlisle, Pa., July 15, 2026. (Tom Brenner/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Shapiro strongly urged Pennsylvanians to get vaccinated for measles during the news conference.

"I want to be clear: This illness and death from measles is completely preventable," he said.

Parsons said Shapiro cast the deaths as being the result of measles.

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Parsons noted that national media outlets framed the deaths as being from measles. The New York Times, in a story Tuesday still posted to its website, added the headline, "Two Unvaccinated People Died From Measles in Pennsylvania, Officials Say."

Joshua Parsons, one of three Lancaster County Commissioners and the vice chairman of the County Commission. (Lancaster County Commissioners Office)

However, according to conversations he had with the Lancaster County Coroner, Parsons claimed nobody in the county has died from measles this year.

"The coroner reported that they don't have … they had zero measles deaths or measles-associated deaths reported. And in Pennsylvania, if you have someone who dies of a contagious disease, that does have to be reported to the county coroner," Parsons told Fox News Digital.

The coroner, Dr. Stephen Diamantoni, has also publicly stated in interviews with local media that he had not been contacted by either Shapiro or the Pennsylvania Department of Health and was surprised to learn of the news conference.

"The coroner had one case where there was an infant who died in a home birth, and he's talked about this publicly. And that infant died with measles but not of measles. At the time of the press conference, the state did not indicate who these two cases were or anything about them. Subsequently, they came out and said that this infant is one of the ones they're counting," Parsons told Fox News Digital.

The Pennsylvania Department of Health, in a statement to Fox News Digital, asserted that it consistently referred to the cases as "measles-associated."

"PA DOH did not describe the cause of death of either individual. As PA DOH has repeatedly made clear since Tuesday, the department consistently used the term ‘measles-associated’ in relation to these two deaths. That term means laboratory or epidemiologic evidence of measles is present — in both cases there was a positive measles test — but the disease may not be assessed by the medical certifier or coroner to be the immediate cause of death," the statement said.

The coroner did acknowledge the presence of measles in the infant who died but said neither he nor the pathologist who examined the infant believed measles to be the cause of death.

Individuals can be infected for days without seeing a rash. (iStock)