Measles killed 6-week-old baby, coroner confirms after RFK Jr. disputed deaths

麻疹导致一名6周大婴儿死亡，验尸官在小罗伯特·肯尼迪质疑后予以证实

A six-week-old baby girl in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, died from measles, the county coroner confirmed to local press on Friday. Stephen Diamantoni, a Republican elected coroner in 2007, told Lancaster Online that the baby died at home. “I believe it was the 18th of August,” he said. 宾夕法尼亚州兰开斯特县的一名6周大女婴死于麻疹，该县验尸官周五向当地媒体证实了这一消息。2007年当选的共和党籍验尸官斯蒂芬·迪亚曼托尼（Stephen Diamantoni）告诉《兰开斯特在线》（Lancaster Online），这名婴儿是在家中去世的。他说：“我相信是在8月18日。”

He also noted that the baby had a genetic condition called Amish lethal microcephaly, in which babies are born with unusually small heads and underdeveloped brains. The condition is caused by a mutation in the SLC25A19 gene, which codes for a protein involved with energy-producing enzymes in the mitochondria and is thought to be important for brain development. About 1 in 500 babies in the Old Order Amish population of Pennsylvania is born with the condition. Infants with the disorder only survive for about six months. Diamontoni confirmed to Lancaster Online that while microcephaly was present, measles was the cause of death. 他还指出，这名婴儿患有一种名为“阿米什致死性小头畸形”（Amish lethal microcephaly）的遗传病，患儿出生时头部异常小，大脑发育不全。这种疾病是由SLC25A19基因突变引起的，该基因编码一种参与线粒体能量产生酶的蛋白质，被认为对大脑发育至关重要。在宾夕法尼亚州的旧秩序阿米什人（Old Order Amish）群体中，约每500名婴儿中就有一人患有此病。患有该疾病的婴儿通常只能存活约六个月。迪亚曼托尼向《兰开斯特在线》证实，尽管婴儿患有小头畸形，但麻疹才是其死亡原因。

Pennsylvania’s two measles deaths

宾夕法尼亚州的两例麻疹死亡病例

The death is one of two that the state’s health department announced last week as being from measles, according to a response from the state health department sent to Ars Technica Friday. Additionally on Friday, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro shared a local news report about the coroner’s confirmation on social media. In the post, he also seemed to confirm that it was one of the deaths reported by state health officials. 根据宾夕法尼亚州卫生部周五发给《Ars Technica》的回应，这起死亡事件是该州卫生部上周宣布的两例麻疹死亡病例之一。此外，宾夕法尼亚州州长乔什·夏皮罗（Josh Shapiro）周五在社交媒体上分享了一篇关于验尸官确认此事的当地新闻报道。他在帖文中似乎也证实，这就是州卫生官员所报告的死亡病例之一。

The tragic deaths—both in infants, the other a newborn boy—have been engulfed in a firestorm of controversy sparked when anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claimed without evidence that the state may have “fabricated” them. The controversy was fueled by Diamantoni himself, who said he had not received the death reports at the time of the state’s announcement, seemingly adding to Kennedy’s false claim that the deaths were not real. But Lancaster County does not have its own health department and relies on information sent from the state health department. Earlier this week, Diamantoni said his office had only recently received the report from the state about the baby girl’s death, telling reporters at the time only that it was of a “child.” 这两起悲剧性的死亡事件（受害者均为婴儿，另一名是新生男婴）引发了巨大的争议。此前，反疫苗立场的卫生部长小罗伯特·肯尼迪（Robert F. Kennedy Jr.）在没有证据的情况下声称，这些死亡病例可能是该州“捏造”的。迪亚曼托尼本人也加剧了这场争议，他曾表示在州政府发布公告时并未收到死亡报告，这似乎助长了肯尼迪关于死亡事件不真实的虚假指控。但兰开斯特县并没有自己的卫生部门，而是依赖州卫生部发送的信息。本周早些时候，迪亚曼托尼表示他的办公室直到最近才收到州政府关于这名女婴死亡的报告，当时他只告诉记者那是一个“孩子”。

Kennedy’s anti-vaccine meddling

肯尼迪的反疫苗干预

Amid a heated exchange with Shapiro, Kennedy ordered Erica Schwartz, the new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to remove the deaths from the agency’s data. CDC staff had already accepted the deaths as being from measles and had reported them as such. Schwartz reportedly removed them from the public website without objection, though a report on Thursday revealed they are still included in an internal CDC database. 在与夏皮罗的激烈交锋中，肯尼迪下令美国疾病控制与预防中心（CDC）新任主任埃里卡·施瓦茨（Erica Schwartz）将这些死亡病例从该机构的数据中删除。CDC的工作人员此前已认定这些死亡是由麻疹引起的，并据此进行了报告。据报道，施瓦茨毫无异议地将这些数据从公共网站上删除，尽管周四的一份报告显示，它们仍被保留在CDC的内部数据库中。

The deaths remain excluded from the CDC’s public-facing data as of Friday afternoon, with only an asterisk in the chart where 2026 measles deaths would be reported. But the page was updated Friday to change the meaning of the asterisk. Previously, the asterisk linked to a note that read, in part: “available information does not establish whether measles caused or contributed to the deaths or whether the individuals died from other causes while infected with measles.” That note is gone, replaced by one saying: “The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) does not currently have any death records from 2026 that indicate measles is the underlying cause.” 截至周五下午，这些死亡病例仍未出现在CDC的公开数据中，图表中本应报告2026年麻疹死亡人数的地方只有一个星号。但该页面在周五进行了更新，改变了星号的含义。此前，星号链接的注释部分写道：“现有信息无法确定麻疹是否导致或促成了这些死亡，也无法确定这些个人在感染麻疹的同时是否死于其他原因。”该注释已被删除，取而代之的是：“国家卫生统计中心（NCHS）目前没有任何2026年的死亡记录显示麻疹是根本死因。”

Ars Technica reached out to the Department of Health and Human Services regarding the new note, asking whether it’s a new requirement that CDC can only report outbreak-linked deaths after NCHS has received death records and whether NCHS had death records at the time the CDC reported three measles deaths last year in Texas and New Mexico. It did not immediately respond. Prior to Kennedy’s interference, state and local health departments were solely responsible for making determinations of measles-associated deaths, and the CDC reported the information it received. 《Ars Technica》就这一新注释联系了美国卫生与公众服务部，询问CDC是否只有在NCHS收到死亡记录后才能报告与疫情相关的死亡病例，这是否是一项新要求；并询问在去年CDC报告德克萨斯州和新墨西哥州发生三例麻疹死亡病例时，NCHS当时是否拥有死亡记录。该部门没有立即回应。在肯尼迪干预之前，州和地方卫生部门全权负责判定与麻疹相关的死亡，而CDC则负责报告其收到的信息。

The newborn’s death

新生儿的死亡

The other death reported by the state health department was in a newborn boy, also from an Amish family in Lancaster County. At birth, his mother was severely ill with measles. She told The Atlantic that she became so ill, she could not speak above a whisper and “didn’t have a single piece of energy” as she went into labor. She became ill amid an ongoing state outbreak that has hit Lancaster County hard. Several of her other children became ill prior to her infection. 州卫生部报告的另一例死亡病例是一名新生男婴，同样来自兰开斯特县的一个阿米什家庭。他出生时，他的母亲正患有严重的麻疹。她告诉《大西洋月刊》，她病得非常重，以至于在分娩时只能低声细语，且“一点力气都没有”。她是在该州持续爆发、且对兰开斯特县造成严重影响的疫情中患病的。在她感染之前，她的其他几个孩子也已经生病了。

The baby was born with a pulse but was not breathing. He was declared dead less than a half-hour later, after paramedics had been called and attempted to give the newborn oxygen and chest compressions. The parents believed without question that he died of measles. Their midwife thought the same. Medical evaluations found the baby was positive for measles and had evidence of the infection in his lungs. But Diamontoni claimed that a pathologist determined that the cause of death was a ruptured spleen, which did not appear enlarged, and that measles didn’t contribute to the death. 婴儿出生时有脉搏但没有呼吸。在医护人员赶到并尝试为新生儿提供氧气和胸外按压后，不到半小时他就被宣布死亡。父母毫无疑问地认为他是死于麻疹。他们的助产士也持相同看法。医学评估发现该婴儿麻疹检测呈阳性，且肺部有感染迹象。但迪亚曼托尼声称，病理学家认定死因是脾脏破裂，且脾脏看起来并未肿大，因此麻疹并非死亡原因。

Paul Offit, a vaccine and pediatric infectious disease expert at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, has challenged the assessment. Offit has explained that measles can cause the spleen to become enlarged and vulnerable, and that birth could cause a rupture in that state. Once a spleen ruptures, it’s difficult to determine whether it was enlarged or not, much like determining how inflated a balloon was before it popped. Offit further pointed out that ruptured spleens are extremely rare in newborns, and if measles wasn’t the cause, Diamontoni should provide an alternative explanation. To date, no other explanation has been made public. 费城儿童医院的疫苗和儿科传染病专家保罗·奥菲特（Paul Offit）对这一评估提出了质疑。奥菲特解释说，麻疹会导致脾脏肿大并变得脆弱，而分娩过程可能会导致处于这种状态的脾脏破裂。一旦脾脏破裂，就很难判断它之前是否肿大，就像很难判断一个气球在爆炸前充气程度如何一样。奥菲特进一步指出，脾脏破裂在新生儿中极为罕见，如果麻疹不是原因，迪亚曼托尼应该提供另一种解释。迄今为止，尚未有其他解释被公开。

Overall, Offit said that based on information he had gotten from state health officials, it’s clear that the two babies wouldn’t have died if it weren’t for measles. In his social media post on Friday on the confirmation of the deaths, Shapiro criticized Kennedy for sowing doubt. 总的来说，奥菲特表示，根据他从州卫生官员那里获得的信息，很明显，如果不是因为麻疹，这两个婴儿就不会死亡。在周五关于确认死亡病例的社交媒体帖文中，夏皮罗批评肯尼迪散布怀疑。