Josh Shapiro Says Vaccination Rates Are Falling Under Trump. His State’s Data Say Otherwise.

Pennsylvania Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro claims that vaccination rates have fallen under President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Data from his own state tell a different story.

The measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccination rates of Pennsylvania kindergartners dropped nearly 2% during the Biden presidency, according to data the Pennsylvania Department of Health provided to The Daily Wire. The MMR vaccination rates went from 95.5% during the 2020-2021 school year to 93.7% during the 2024-2025 school year, data show. Vaccination rates have consistently decreased every year since the 2019-2020 height of 96.4%, according to the Health Department.

Screenshot of an email sent to The Daily Wire from the Pennsylvania Department of Health.

Pennsylvania Secretary of Health Dr. Debra Bogen publicly stated the state’s drop in vaccination rates occurred during the Biden administration during an October 2025 press conference at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP).

“Over the past five years, we’ve seen about a 3% decline in the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination rate for children entering kindergarten in Pennsylvania. And we’ve seen similar rates of decline in other vaccines,” Bogen said at the press conference where Shapiro signed an executive order promoting vaccination.

But neither the facts nor his own administration’s acceptance of them stopped Shapiro from pushing the claim that the Trump administration’s policies were depressing vaccination rates.

Shapiro’s order, “Protecting Pennsylvanians’ Health and Freedom by Ensuring Access to Safe and Effective Vaccines,” directs state agencies to follow vaccine advice from the American Academy of Pediatrics instead of the “politically-influenced recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.”

“I do not want you to be guided by someone like RFK Jr. who I believe is wholly unqualified to give medical advice and who is restricting our freedoms here in Pennsylvania and across this country,” Shapiro stated during the October 2025 press conference. “RFK kicked off 17 highly qualified medical experts off of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices… including the very competent, the very qualified Charlotte Moser, the co-director of the Vaccine Education Center right here at CHOP.”

Moser spoke at the signing alongside the hospital’s CEO, Madeline Bell, who was a member of Shapiro’s transition team. Bell met with President Joe Biden in September 2021 to discuss “the importance of vaccine mandates” after the hospital’s 22,000 employees were required to receive a COVID-19 vaccination in July 2021, according to the hospital’s website. The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Vaccine Education Center is directed by Dr. Paul Offit.

The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia did not immediately respond to The Daily Wire’s request for comment. 

Shapiro and Bogen announced two “measles-associated deaths” had occurred in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, on August 25. Shapiro stated the deceased were “unvaccinated” and refused to provide any additional information. The governor laid blame on the Trump administration for the deaths and said he was “very, very blunt” with Secretary Kennedy on a phone call before the announcement. 

“I made very clear that his actions and the rhetoric that’s coming from this administration are having a negative impact on communities across America,” Shapiro stated during the press conference. “There’s real life consequences to spreading misinformation.”

Kennedy fired back at Shapiro on X, claiming the governor acknowledged during their call that Pennsylvania’s vaccination rates fell during the Biden administration.

“Governor Shapiro also faulted me for the decline in Pennsylvania vaccination rates from 97% – 93.2%. When I pushed back on this assertion, he acknowledged that most of the decline occurred during the Biden administration,” Kennedy wrote. “It’s unfortunately true that the government lockdowns, deceptions, manipulation, and overreach during Covid severely damaged public faith in the vaccine program. Governor Shapiro’s press conference was an example of the same species of gaslighting.” 

Lancaster County Commissioner Joshua Parsons directly challenged Shapiro’s narrative and claimed the county coroner had no record of any deaths caused by measles hours after the announcement in an X post. 

“The Coroner’s office indicates that it currently has ZERO reported cases where measles is the immediate cause of death,” Parsons wrote on August 25. “They have one case where a person died WITH measles, but not FROM measles. Measles was definitely NOT the cause of death in that case.”

The Pennsylvania Department of Health posted a statement on August 26 suggesting a “measles-associated” death meant the deceased person had laboratory evidence of measles without it being assessed as “the immediate cause of death.” 

“PA DOH uses the term ‘measles-associated’ when laboratory or epidemiologic evidence of measles is present, but the disease may not be assessed by the medical certifier or coroner to be the immediate cause of death,” the department said in the statement. 

Lancaster County Coroner Dr. Stephen Diamantoni confirmed to LancasterOnline on August 27 that one of the announced “measles-associated” deaths was a newborn who died of a ruptured spleen. 

“Measles was not the cause of death — the laceration to the spleen is the cause,” reported LancasterOnline. “And measles was ruled out as a contributing factor because, Diamantoni said, ‘there was no swelling or enlargement whatsoever’ of the spleen and there was ‘massive blood loss’ from the laceration.”

Shapiro has been criticized by both sides of the aisle for mishandling the situation and further eroding America’s trust in public health. He was asked by a reporter on August 28 for clarity about the case, but he refused to provide additional information.   

The governor’s office did not respond to The Daily Wire’s requests for comment. 

Parsons told The Daily Wire the Shapiro administration needs to be honest with the public.

“We just want the facts and we want the truth about what happened here, and we haven’t gotten that,” Parsons said. “I think the lesson that was learned from COVID is that government and public health officials need to be honest.”

This controversy has unfolded as the Shapiro administration is pushing to radically rewrite the state’s health code and give itself authoritarian police powers, as previously reported by The Daily Wire. 

The Democrats’ proposed changes to the state’s health code would give Pennsylvania’s Department of Health centralized police powers under the guise of “disease control measures,” including the ability to enter homes and schools without a warrant, access confidential medical records, and impose statewide school mask mandates for disease prevention. Former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf used his unchecked emergency powers to impose some of the harshest COVID restrictions in the nation from March 2020 to June 2021, which were doggedly enforced by Shapiro, who at that time was Pennsylvania’s attorney general. 

Pennsylvanians responded to the COVID mitigation measures by passing a constitutional amendment in May 2021 that limited the governor’s emergency powers to three weeks. The Department of Health reports to the governor’s office, meaning the proposed changes to Pennsylvania’s health code would give Shapiro — and his successors — the ability to single-handedly implement draconian policies across the state.

The Pennsylvania Department of Health will be able to stop students from receiving an in-person education if they are deemed “susceptible” to a disease, such as measles, and will require healthcare providers to input every delivered vaccination into a statewide database, unless the patient proactively declines in writing.

A department spokesman told The Daily Wire the proposed regulations are undergoing a review process and encouraged Pennsylvanians “to review the proposed regulations for themselves and participate in the regulatory process by providing feedback during the extended public comment period.”