Politicians need to stop holding press conferences every time someone dies of measles
For a week, the federal government and the state of Pennsylvania have been embroiled in a fight over whether a measles outbreak killed two state residents, leading to countless articles asking, among other questions, if a mother’s measles can cause a fatal lacerated spleen in an infant (the answer: unlikely).
Now the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is insisting on reviewing the two cases before it agrees the deaths were measles-related, provoking a new round of questions about whether the CDC should be second-guessing the state’s report (the answer: yes).
Yet nobody has asked the most crucial question of all:Why did the governor of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, hold a press conference to announce these deaths?
To put it another way: Why is every measles death now national news? Using a press conference to alert a population of a measles outbreak makes sense. Residents should know if they’ve been exposed, especially if they’re unvaccinated.
Announcing individual measles deaths is pure political and public health (to the extent those ideas can even be separated) theater.
