Gov. Shapiro Exploited Pennsylvania Baby's Death and His Local Vaccine Maker Couldn't Be Happier
The nation's largest MMR vaccine manufacturer is based in Shapiro's home county and they seem like friends.
At an Aug. 25 press conference in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro falsely claimed the deaths of two people were "associated" with measles. Based on that bit of sophistry, Shapiro urged people to get vaccinated and used the moment to attack the Trump Administration's vaccination policies. Shapiro practically blamed Trump and U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for the deaths.
"Folks are spreading skepticism about things like the MMR vaccine without any evidence," Shapiro said, "and it plays a role in why so many people right now are getting measles for the first time in decades…today, we see the consequences of a lack of immunization in the first measles-associated deaths that our Commonwealth has seen in 35 years."
The state refused to give details about the deaths.
🚨 BREAKING: Gov. Shapiro’s Tuesday measles-death press conference just got DISMANTLED— publicly, on the record, in three news outlets — by the elected county coroner.
— Sayer Ji (@sayerjigmi) August 28, 2026
“Traumatic laceration of the spleen.” NOT measles.
Second death: “We have no idea who that really is.”… pic.twitter.com/TYHECbkomj
Lancaster County Coroner Stephen Diamantoni told LNP News a newborn baby boy who died from massive blood loss due to a ruptured spleen tested positive for measles, but he ruled out measles as a contributing factor of death. The state confirmed this was one of the two cases they were referring to, but still refused to give LNP any information about the other case. The coroner is not aware of any other death.
Shapiro's scare mongering was a fabrication to push vaccine compliance. Why would he do that?
Motivation
It turns out Shapiro has a cozy relationship with pharmaceutical companies who are affected by President Donald Trump's Aug. 10 Executive Order reducing childhood vaccine recommendations from 18 to 11 diseases. The order also split the combined measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) shot into single shots.
This made for unsavory news to Merck & Co., maker of "the most sold MMR vaccine in the U.S." The company makes the MMR Vaccine in Montgomery County, Shapiro's home county where he served as a county commissioner and has long lived and practiced politics. Political operatives familiar with Shapiro's early career understand how deep his roots go in Montgomery County politics.
Shapiro is acutely aware that Merck plans a $2.9 billion expansion project in Montgomery County where it employs 12,000 people. The Philadelphia Business Journal detailed the plan in an Aug. 6 article. Merck will construct a 74,920-square-foot building for making vaccines. According to a May Philadelphia Inquirer article, Merck got Shapiro to fast-track a proposal it favored to ease water pollution reporting regulations after running into environmentalist opposition.
Meanwhile, according to Merck's June 30 Securities and Exchange Commission filings, global sales for its MMR Vaccine ProQuad were down 14 percent in the second quarter of 2026. This filing mentions that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced changes to the child and adolescent immunization schedule in January, reducing the number of routinely recommended vaccinations. A March 16 preliminary injunction in federal district court in Massachusetts halted the immunization schedule changes, but the Trump Administration appealed the district court ruling, sending it to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.
Then Trump's Aug.10 Executive Order fast tracked the court stuff and days later, we saw the Shapiro Shuffle in Lancaster. Measles is out of control! People are dying! We need to roll back Trumps awful executive order my good friends are battling in court! Trust me, I'm a politician!
Something like that.
Profits in Peril
Merck has a lot to lose if the formula for vaccines changes. And that is what happens when the MMR gets split into individual shots instead of a combo jab.
The federal government is one of its biggest customers. The CDC currently pays $195 for a 10 pack of ProQuad on a contract obligating the CDC to buy $1.4 billion from Merck with a potential for $4.5 billion this fiscal year.
A lot of major projects are in the works for more vaccine sales. Pennsylvanians may not have realized that taxpayers have been very generous to Big Pharma.
In April, Shapiro gave Merck a state grant for $31.3 million to install a geothermal heating and cooling system and an electrified chiller at its Montgomery County pharmaceutical manufacturing facility. In June, Shapiro gave $10.6 million to Sanofi in Monroe County for new equipment to cut its natural gas footprint. Sanofi makes the flu vaccines. In January, Shapiro announced the state would give global pharmaceutical firm Eli Lilly and Company $100 million to build a new, $3.5 billion pharmaceutical manufacturing facility in Lehigh County. It will produce injectable medicines, including weight-loss therapies and GLP-1s.
And in Oct. 2024, Shapiro announced that global biopharma company GSK would spend $800 million in Lancaster County to expand its research and development, and manufacturing. GSK makes MMR Vaccines too, but not in Pennsylvania.
Broken Trust
Shapiro called a press conference specifically to spread misinformation, and using his confident voice and a glib smile, this trained attorney—former Pennsylvania Attorney General even—manipulated public emotion, for the benefit of big pharmaceutical companies. Is that what you voted for? He revealed he is willing to compromise his integrity for deep pocketed pharmaceutical companies. What does he get out of it? Because this behavior is not for nothing.
This episode also reveals this sad truth: Shapiro doesn't actually care about babies who die tragically. If he did, he would not have used the baby's parents' story to advance his agenda, and he would have reached out to the family or at least expressed authentic sympathy.
Then again, we already knew that from his unwavering support for abortion.
Many who have taken Shapiro at face value, as a smiling good guy, can no longer say that. Now we all know: Josh Shapiro is not a nice man.
We don't know what else Shapiro has lied about, but at least we can see now how he operates.
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