Two unvaccinated people have died from measles in Pennsylvania, officials confirmed. Secretary of Health Dr. Debra Bogen expressed sympathy for the families while urging vaccination. "Because measles was largely eliminated in the Commonwealth for more than three decades, people are not familiar with this disease and don’t fully understand the potential severity of the illness," Bogen said. She emphasized that the MMR vaccine is safe and provides the best protection.

Measles fatalities are rare—between one to three in 1,000 cases—but the disease can be severe, leading to hospitalizations, hearing loss, and intellectual disabilities. It can also cause subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE), a fatal neurological condition that appears years later. Two doses of the MMR vaccine, given at around 1 and 4 years of age, are 97 percent effective.

The vaccine has proven safe over decades of global use. However, anti-vaccine rhetoric has driven down vaccination rates. Some discourse has come from Trump administration officials, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the US health secretary. President Trump also falsely claimed the MMR vaccine can be "quite lethal." The vaccine has never been linked to a death in a person with a competent immune system.