In accordance with the order of newly appointed CDC Director Erica Schwartz, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have stripped Pennsylvania measles-related deaths off its national list, citing the need for additional investigation into whether measles was responsible for these deaths. The move comes after public questioning by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., despite the assertion by Pennsylvania health authorities that epidemiologists had carefully studied the cases of the unvaccinated people who died. All this occurs at a time of the highest US measles outbreak in 35 years and criticism of the federal executive orders seeking to overturn vaccination guidelines and divide the MMR vaccine.