House Democrats demand answers from CDC on Pennsylvania measles deaths

House Democrats on the Energy and Commerce Committee are demanding answers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention regarding the agency’s refusal to accept Pennsylvania’s reporting of two measles deaths, the first in 35 years.

The committee’s ranking member Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-N.J.) sent a letter to new agency director Erica Schwartz, calling for a briefing on CDC’s measles response, including why it hasn’t counted Pennsylvania’s deaths in its official weekly tally.

Pallone was joined on the letter by Reps. Diana DeGette (D-Colo), ranking member of the health subcommittee, and Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.), ranking member of the oversight and investigations subcommittee.

They are demanding a staff briefing from CDC by Sept. 28.

The decision to exclude the deaths reportedly came directly from Schwartz, who took charge of the agency this month amid a pledge to operate independently from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

As of Friday, the CDC reported 160 new measles cases in the past week, bringing this year’s total to 3,294. But according to CDC, there have been no deaths.

On its website, the agency put an asterisk next to the data and noted that the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) hasn’t recorded any deaths this year where measles was the underlying cause.

The Pennsylvania health department on Tuesday said it has now confirmed two additional measles-related deaths, bringing the state’s total to four.

“Your decision to interfere with the inclusion of the first two measles related deaths on CDC’s publicly facing database is consistent with the many other ways that the Trump Administration has degraded tools to prevent disease spread, damaged the partnership between the states and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and suppressed information about threats and harm to the public,” the Democrats wrote.

The third death “underscores the gravity of CDC’s failure to provide consistent, reliable information to the public as the country grapples with a historic return of measles,” the lawmkers wrote.

Schwartz has not publicly discussed her reasoning for excluding a state’s own reporting, a radical departure from the agency’s normal practice.

The state’s health department said it provided CDC with the relevant epidemiological data and evaluated the deaths based on CDC’s criteria.