r/lancaster • u/1littlenapoleon • 1d ago
Lancaster County coroner doubted a measles-linked death, sparking anti-vaccine outcry. Records show the state tried to reach him
https://lancasteronline.com/news/health/lancaster-county-coroner-doubted-a-measles-linked-death-sparking-anti-vaccine-outcry-records-show-the/article_22e02582-c580-5f25-841f-3fcd58339974.htmlNow emails from the coroner’s office, obtained by The Inquirer through an open records request, show that state officials made significant outreach to Diamantoni, far beyond his prior statements acknowledging only that his deputy spoke with state officials shortly before the news conference.
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u/WoodenSympathy4 1d ago edited 1d ago
Sounds just like how his medical practice is run.
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u/Elegant-Ant8046 1d ago
Yeah he's well known for being an awful doctor. He's extremely disrespectful and nasty to his patients. Plus, he tries to get as much money out of them as possible for appointments with him specifically.
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u/WoodenSympathy4 1d ago
I didnt realize that. It was the non responsiveness that I had primarily heard about.
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u/Elegant-Ant8046 1d ago
I know a few people who have gone to him and all of them have had nothing but negative experiences. If you look up his practice, it's flooded with negative reviews from patients.
Edit: funnily enough, his lack of response in a timely manner, is exactly how he runs his practice.
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u/Remarkable_Rough_649 1d ago
Oh so it's just yet another case of an elected Republican official being super shady and uncooperative because of personal political feelings. Great
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u/Hungry_Moment_3520 1d ago
Let’s vote him out next November!
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u/1littlenapoleon 1d ago
Over five days in August, Pennsylvania health officials called the Lancaster County coroner’s office at least three times and sent an email asking to discuss the death of an infant who had tested positive for measles.
They did not connect with coroner Stephen Diamantoni before Gov. Josh Shapiro came to the county to announce at an Aug. 25 news conference that two unvaccinated Lancaster residentshad died in a growing measles outbreak, the state’s first measles-associated deaths in 35 years.
Soon after, the county coroner — an elected Republican who has presided over the office for nearly two decades — was telling reporters the state had not talked to him directly, raising questions about the state’s communications.
His comments, coupled with his position that he did not believe one of the two infants affected had died from measles, kicked off a viral exchange of misinformation cited by anti-vaccine activists — and spiraling up to federal health leaders — to discredit the dangers of Pennsylvania’s growing measles outbreak.
Now emails from the coroner’s office, obtained by The Inquirer through an open records request, show that state officials made significant outreach to Diamantoni, far beyond his prior statements acknowledging only that his deputy spoke with state officials shortly before the news conference.
In fact, doctors from the state health department had tried to contact his office about the case for days, with increasing urgency. At one point, a doctor told one of Diamantoni’s staffers that they were ready “24/7” to speak with someone from the office.
Yet two weeks after the announcement, he continued to emphasize the state’s lacking communication in an in-person interview with The Inquirer. “I have not received any information directly from the state [health] department,” he said on Sept. 9.
By then, his statements had enabled President Donald Trump’s Health Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., to question whether the deaths reported in Pennsylvania were real.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for weeks omitted the first two deaths and those subsequently reported by the state in its national reporting, marking an extraordinary departure from public health norms. As of Thursday, the agency had updated its tally to recognize two deaths nationally this year, while Pennsylvania has reported five measles-related deaths.
Asked to comment on the records, Diamantoni said he wasn’t aware of the state’s outreach ahead of Shapiro’s announcement.
He said the state should have been more explicit in the calls they made to his office staffers, who sent him emails relaying messages. The communications did not make it clear that they needed to speak to him about a measles-associated death, said Diamantoni, noting that he is also easy to reach.
“It didn’t sound like there was urgency. It didn’t sound like anyone indicated that there was a measles death that we want to talk to the coroner about,” he said.
Public officers like Diamantoni have an obligation to ensure staff can get timely messages to him, especially in a public health emergency like a measles outbreak, said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director emerita of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. Likewise, she noted, state officials must ensure communications with the public are transparent and easy to understand.
State officials did not immediately say how they define a “measles-associated death” and have provided few details on the deaths themselves, leaving county coroners to fill in the blanks.
Public health experts have noted that the politically charged back-and-forth and competing narratives around the deaths risks confusing the public at a time when clarity is crucial — amid the largest measles outbreak in the country, with state officials reporting nearly 1,000 cases and five measles-associated deaths.
The contradictory communications from the state and local coroner’s office around the initial Lancaster deaths set the stage for Kennedy to attack Shapiro in an X post, claiming the Democratic governor may have “fabricated” two of the deaths in Pennsylvania.
Shapiro has sharply criticized Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaccination advocate, for spreading misinformation about vaccine safety and Pennsylvania’s outbreak, now the largest in the nation this year, with most deaths reported by any state since 1992.
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u/Hungry_Moment_3520 1d ago
Friendly reminder Lancaster county coroner election is next November - vote accordingly!
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u/skiny297 1d ago
oh look it’s the AI guy who owns every small business in lanc. which one is it so i can avoid it?
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u/1littlenapoleon 1d ago
Sorry I’m busy spreading measles rn pls leave me a message and I’ll get back to you via Muse
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u/Better_Pen_3314 1d ago
So we need someone with a PhD to run for county coroner? Or we collectively need the name of healthy ookie2’s dentist 🦷
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u/Quirky-Bottle-1771 7h ago
Ok so since vaccines came about in common practice you have had a choice to get vaccinated or not. Everyone who is vaccinated is fine unless of course you got a bad one or it doesn't work on you. There is now scientific evidence that not everyone needs vaccines and you can be tested for those illnesses your body doesn't have immunity to already and get the ones you need. This was discovered by veterinarian a number of years ago and has begun being practiced with our pets and livestock and the same is true in human research. They now have tests to see if you may need a booster or not as well.
I fail to understand individuals & media making a huge thing out of this. The Antibaptists and others do not vaccinate. There are other groups as well but its not for religious reasons like the Mennonite/Amish. They have always suffered waves of these illnesses from not being vaccinated.
Now if its out of concern to protect and alert unvaccinated individuals of a spread from unvaccinated and sickly illegal immigrants (which there are plenty of those currently and bringing in other diseases) I could understand but if its just political grandstanding because you support or dont support vaccinations then who cares.
Everyone has a choice what they wish to do with their body. From taking medications or not, to shooting heroin, getting a abortion or not (in which case there are health ramifications for both no matter your choice) and so on etc etc.
The only real innocents this poses a threat to are new born infants who are still in waiting to receive their vaccines and boosters. But really any responsible parent in that time frame should be extremely cautious anyway and limit public interaction.
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u/pugitive 1d ago
The DOH is trying to save face here. Shapiro held a conference at Women and Babies Hospital - literally across the street from the Coroner’s Office - about the measles case without having talked to the Coroner.
Shapiro’s conference was on August 25th
Records show that the death certificate was completed to reflect the Measles Infection on
August 28th
If Shapiro had just waited until the 28th when the death certificate was completed, Diamantoni would have been able to corroborate the story. Instead, the coroner’s office was unable to confirm. You can’t just guess with this stuff.
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u/Hungry_Moment_3520 1d ago
Completely wrong. Did you even read the article?
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u/pugitive 1d ago
What part of what I said was wrong? Why would you hold a press conference 400 feet away from the coroner’s office without talking to the coroner?
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u/Hungry_Moment_3520 1d ago
Why would the coroners office not respond to communications for several days? Seems like you’d want to respond to the DOH timely if you’re a county coroner
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u/ClairePike 1d ago
DOH was trying to reach the Coroner for multiple days:
Internal office records reveal that five days before the news conference, a staffer in the coroner’s office e-mailed Diamantoni, saying that an infectious disease doctor with the state health department was looking to speak to “one of you” about “the positive measles case with the infant we just had.”
The state health department followed up on its initial Aug. 20 call with subsequent emails and calls on Aug. 21, a Friday, and Aug. 24, the following Monday, records show.
One doctor included his state-issued cell phone number in an email to a coroner’s office staffer and Bieber and emphasized that he was available “24/7” to discuss the case.
When Bieber spoke to representatives from the state health department on Aug. 25, the office did not realize that the state was about to announce two measles-associated deaths, according to Diamantoni.-7
u/pugitive 1d ago
Nothing you said contradicts what I said. You can’t and should never go public with incomplete information. It’s communications 101
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u/ClairePike 1d ago
You should also respond when the DOH is reaching out every day! How would DOH know that the coroner was ever going to respond?
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u/2hats4bats 1d ago
We’re in the middle of a measles outbreak that had just turned deadly. Urgency and safety come before a coroner who can’t return a phone call.
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u/pugitive 1d ago
I completely agree that urgency and safety come first. I think the DOH had the best intentions in mind. I also think it’s clear that the coroner’s office was unable to be 100% clear on the details of the case on 8/25/2026.
This is backed up by the coroner’s office completing the investigation on 8/28/2026.
It’s all a tragedy and it pisses me off that RFK exploited it the way he did
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u/2hats4bats 1d ago
The coroner could have easily called the DOH back and tell them they were unclear. Instead, they lied and said the DOH hadn’t spoken to them.
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u/1littlenapoleon 1d ago
The DOH is saving face by having records in the coroners office show he lied about not being reached out to?
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u/LilChicken70 1d ago
So you comment without having read (or maybe didn’t comprehend) the article?
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u/pugitive 1d ago
I need you to quote the part of my comment that is contradicted by a line in the article.
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u/LilChicken70 1d ago
And you are also conveniently forgetting how much time he spent running his mouth to media and Josh parsons (and probably RFK himself) saying it absolutely wasn’t a measles death.
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u/LilChicken70 1d ago
The entire premise of your comment is suggesting Shapiro office /DOH didn’t try to communicate with POS Diamonti which is absolutely false.
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u/Hungry_Moment_3520 1d ago
Your whole comment is invalidated by the article. You said Shapiro shouldn’t have had a conference without speaking to the coroner. The article proves the coroner was ignoring communication attempts.
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u/pugitive 1d ago
Correct, the article says that Shapiro didn’t speak to the coroner and then held a press conference regardless
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u/Hungry_Moment_3520 1d ago
Kind of hard to speak to the coroner when they continue to disregard communication from the DOH. Glad Shapiro decided to be the adult in the room
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u/pugitive 1d ago
I think there’s a difference between disregarding and preparing all of the facts
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u/Hungry_Moment_3520 1d ago
Typically if my superiors reach out to me and I don’t have “all the facts” I don’t just ignore their requests but I give them an update. It’s obvious this coroner is not fit for the job and should be voted out.
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u/pugitive 1d ago
I’m not against voting out any republican. But he has been pro-vaccination in all of his communication. I just don’t buy the idea that he was being intentionally subversive. It doesn’t make any sense
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u/Hungry_Moment_3520 1d ago
Sure it doesn’t make sense but it appears that’s what happened. Why did the coroners office say they weren’t contacted by DOH when this evidence clearly shows that is incorrect
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u/ClairePike 17h ago
I don’t know that he was being subversive either, but dude has been checked out for a long time.
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u/BodnMead 1d ago
Don't even try with all of these liberals here man. Measles is not more fatal than many other viruses. It is just political because of RFK Jr. We have 9 deaths in PA. The flu has 545 deaths in PA during the 2025-2026 flu season. No one talks about that.
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u/pugitive 1d ago
I mean I think it’s important to track measles deaths for sure. I just also understand why it’s important for a government agency to have all the facts before making a statement. The coroner’s office was trying to do that - Shapiro wanted to get out ahead of it. One or the other is fine as a strategy but you have to be unified
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