Fact-Check: Paul Offit on Measles and Vaccines

After a forensic pathologist concluded an infant died from a ruptured spleen, Offit ignored medical evidence and told a national audience the kid died from measles.

5 minute read

Paul Offit of Penn Medicine has made millions of dollars from the vaccine industry—just search your favorite AI app for Paul Offit and Merck vaccines—and has been nailed in numerous lies to promote their products. Now he’s just been caught telling another whopper about measles and vaccines.

After a Pennsylvania coroner told local media that the county’s forensic pathologist conducted an autopsy and concluded an infant died from a ruptured spleen, Offit went on national television and lied, saying that the child had died of measles.

I’m not joking. This was all captured on camera. And after lying about why the infant died, Offit then pivoted into a rant on PBS news about vaccines. But it gets better.

Not only did Offit hijack this poor infant’s death to launch a promotional campaign for Big Pharma, he actually invented a new cause of death: measles-mediated splenic rupture. When you search the academic literature, it’s impossible to find a medical case study or academic paper where an expert concluded that measles caused a spleen to rupture, killing the patient.

It’s a fantasy medical condition created in the pharma-funded mind of Paul Offit.

Here’s what happened.

ACT 1: Governor Shapiro Misleads the Media

On August 25, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro held a press event at the Penn Medicine’s hospital in Lancaster announcing that two unvaccinated people had died—the first “measles-associated” deaths in the state in 35 years. Let’s watch the presser, because there’s quite a bit to unpack.

First, understand the politics. Governor Shapiro is a Democrat who was passed over as Kamala Harris’s choice for vice president in 2024. Since that time, Shapiro has labored to create national news about himself, releasing a new memoir and attacking pretty much every politician of greater national importance than himself, including senior members of his own party and President Donald Trump. The measles press conference appears to be a Shapiro strategy to generate news about Shapiro by picking a fight with Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr.

Second, Shapiro hid critical information about who died. During the press conference, the patients were labeled “Pennsylvania residents” of Lancaster County. (More on this in a second)

Third, Shapiro continued to play with words throughout the press conference, emphasizing that two “unvaccinated” people in Lancaster County had died from “measles associated” causes, ushering the media down a carefully constructed narrative pathway that ended with obvious but misleading headlines: Measles Killed Two Unvaccinated People.

However, details began leaking out, and Shapiro’s deceptive press conference soon started unravelling. Within hours a Lancaster County official posted on social media that the Lancaster County Coroner’s Office had found “zero measles deaths in Lancaster County.”

Neither the Governor, Penn Medicine, nor the state health department would clarify to Lancaster county officials what purported deaths from measles had allegedly occurred in Lancaster. The county official added, “So as of right now, we have ZERO information that corroborates the idea that there were two measles deaths in Lancaster County.”

Nonetheless, the New York Times played dutiful packhorse following Shapiro’s lead. And while Shapiro said that measles was “associated” with the deaths, the Times rewrote his press conference to state that measles caused the deaths.

ACT 2: Facts Spill Out, Coroner calls bullshit on Shapiro

But it gets better.

Governor Shapiro released private, personal medical details at Penn Medicine’s hospital about two people in Lancaster County: their vaccination status and how they had died.

But Shapiro’s press conference quashed any further questions about the two “unvaccinated” Lancaster County “people” who died. We were told this was “out of respect for their privacy.”

We then learned why Shapiro withheld further details—both “people” were actually “infants.” One was a newborn who died shortly after birth, the second died at six weeks.

Labeling infants “unvaccinated” for measles is misleading and dishonest, something Shapiro, Penn Medicine, and the state health department must have known, because why else hide their age while telling us they were unvaccinated and died from measles?

The measles vaccine is not licensed for infants. It’s only licensed to give when a child is a year old. Of course the two infants were unvaccinated, because ALL infants are unvaccinated for measles.

On August 27, a Lancaster County official accused the state health department of spreading false information, posting on social media that the newborn had died of a lacerated spleen.

For the 1st case they are pointing to an infant that died WITH measles, but not FROM it. From our coroner:

“Lancaster County Coroner Steve Diamantoni said the cause of death was not from the measles. The newborn died shortly after birth from a laceration of the spleen, although measles antibodies were present in postmortem testing, he said in an interview.”

On August 30, Lancaster County’s coroner, Dr. Stephen Diamantoni, gave an interview to a local TV station and was asked if measles could have caused the spleen to rupture. Diamontoni said it’s “possible” that measles could enlarge or inflame the spleen, but the spleen “was neither enlarged, nor inflamed” so the pathologist concluded “the laceration of the spleen was not related to measles.”

Here’s that clip.

ACT 3: Paul Offit Lies About Measles, Pushes Vaccines

On September 2, Penn Medicine’s Paul Offit appeared on PBS news and denied the forensic pathologist’s findings, stating that measles can enlarge the spleen and cause a rupture, so that means the infant died from measles. “I think it is fair to say that that child died from measles, but we just keep going back and forth on this sort of semantic morass.”

Here’s that clip.

Of course, this is only one of many times Paul Offit has been caught in a lie. Among the many examples is 300 word correction the Orange County Register ran in 2011 after their editors caught Paul Offit making “unsubstantiated and/or false” statements to their reporter, and documents showed he had hidden millions of dollars he had received from the pharmaceutical industry, including royalties from Merck.

Evidence of Offit’s lies are sprinkled across the internet, a crumb trail for any reporter to discover if they have even a tiny bit of journalistic interest. So why did PBS host Offit on their program, allow him to lie, and not report his industry ties and history of lies to viewers?

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If we lived in a normal world where getting caught in lies mattered, Paul Offit would have been done over a decade ago when the Orange County Register ran that 300 word correction. But we don’t live in a normal world, and physicians get cornered in fibs all the time and just keep moving.

Most reporters don’t care, they just need an “expert” to give them a quote.

For posterity’s sake, and for the sake of basic sanity, here’s the full Orange County Register correction detailing Paul Offit’s fabrications.

Corrections for April 18

By Orange County Register | Orange County Register

PUBLISHED: April 18, 2011 at 3:49 PM PDT

An OC Register article dated Aug. 4, 2008 entitled “Dr. Paul Offit Responds” contained several disparaging statements that Dr. Offit of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia made about CBS News Investigative Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson and her report. Upon further review, it appears that a number of Dr. Offit’s statements, as quoted in the OC Register article, were unsubstantiated and/or false. Attkisson had previously reported on the vaccine industry ties of Dr. Offit and others in a CBS Evening News report “How Independent Are Vaccine Defenders?” July 25, 2008.

Unsubstantiated statements include: Offit’s claim that Attkisson “lied”; and Offit’s claim that CBS News sent a “mean spirited and vituperative” email “over the signature of Sharyl Attkisson” stating “You’re clearly hiding something.” In fact, the OC Register has no evidence to support those claims. Further, Offit told the OC Register that he provided CBS News “the details of his relationship, and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s relationship, with pharmaceutical company Merck.” However, documents provided by CBS News indicate Offit did not disclose his financial relationships with Merck, including a $1.5 million Hilleman chair he sits in that is co-sponsored by Merck. According to the CBS News’ documentation recently reviewed by the OC Register, the network requested (but Offit did not disclose) the entire profile of his professional financial relationships with pharmaceutical companies including: The amount of compensation he’d received from which companies in speaking fees; and pharmaceutical consulting relationships and fees. The CBS News documentation indicates Offit also did not disclose his share of past and future royalties for the Merck vaccine he co-invented. To the extent that unsubstantiated and/or false claims appeared in the OC Register and have been repeated by other organizations and individuals, the OC Register wishes to express this clarification for their reference and for the record.