Shapiro Administration Proposal Expands Health Department Entry And Record-Access Powers

Pennsylvania’s Department of Health faces criticism for a proposed regulation that would grant broad investigative authority while forbidding obstruction, including investigations into non-infectious conditions. The current regulation allows investigations for cases and outbreaks, but the proposed update would grant the state’s health department authority to investigate “public health emergencies and unusual occurrences of diseases, infections and conditions.”

The current regulation allows officials to enter “a house, a health care facility, a building or other premises” for “an investigation of a case or outbreak.” The proposed update replaces “house” with “apartment” and replaces “premises” with “location” while adding “school” and “college or university.”

The current regulation states, “A person may not interfere with or obstruct a representative of the Department or a local health authority who seeks to enter.” The proposed regulation states, “The Department or local health authority may enter.” The language update gives the agency affirmative power to enter and forbids obstruction of the investigation. They have the authority to do so for a broader range of “public health emergencies and unusual occurrences of diseases, infections, and conditions.”

The proposed regulation drops the requirement that officials first “judge” a case or outbreak as a potential public-health threat before utilizing their investigative power to enter private spaces. The regulation explains that they will not carry over the words “judged by the Department or local health authority to be a potential threat to public health” because any “cases, outbreaks, public health emergencies and unusual occurrences of disease reported to the department would all be potential threats to the public health and require measures by the department, which is why they are reported.”

The current regulation allows the agency to review confidential medical records, but the regulation proposal is said to clarify this by adding the word “access.” The proposal says this language update is necessary because the health authority cannot review medical records without access to them.

The department seeks to add “condition” alongside “communicable disease” and “infection” across the regulation so that all powers granted to investigate infectious diseases can also be applied to non-infectious conditions such as chemical exposure, lead, carbon monoxide, and pesticide exposure.

The proposed regulation references Corman v. Acting Secretary of the Department of Health (2021), which found the department did not have the authority to issue a school-wide masking mandate during the pandemic. The agency’s powers were limited to the word “surveillance,” so it proposes adding “prevention, containment, or mitigation” as justifications for disease-control measures under the act.

Arguments against this proposed regulation include that it violates the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution and Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution: people “shall be secure in their persons, houses, papers and possessions from unreasonable searches.” In Rivera v. Borough of Pottstown (2025), the Commonwealth Court ruled that Pottstown could not use administrative warrants to enter an occupied rental home for a code inspection unless there is individualized probable cause of a violation at that unit.

Tenants and a landlord sued the Borough of Pottstown over forced rental inspections, and the decision has been appealed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The court treated nonconsensual government entry into an apartment as a search that needs individualized probable cause rather than a general inspection program. The Department of Health proposal says officials “may enter an apartment…or other location as necessary” after showing credentials, without a warrant, and without an individualized-cause finding.

The Fourth Amendment protects citizens against unreasonable searches and seizures, including their “persons, houses, papers, and effects.” The proposed regulation gives broad authority to the health department to enter private dwellings without warrant and without consent.

The comment period for the regulation closes on September 21, 2026. There are currently dozens of comments on the proposal, with most of the comments in opposition. One comment suggests there should be mandatory vaccination of all children 12 and older without parental consent. He also states that “religious freedoms” should be rolled back for the protection of public health while referencing measles cases and deaths in the state.

Governor Josh Shapiro and DOH Secretary Dr. Debra Bogen held a press conference this week to declare there were two “measles-associated” deaths, but have been questioned about the specific nature of these cases. The department clarified in a Facebook post that “measles-associated” means “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 one case was an infant and is being investigated by the county coroner. Lancaster Online first reported that coroner Dr. Stephen Diamantoni said his office is investigating an infant who tested positive for measles, but died of a ruptured spleen. The other case is not being evaluated by the coroner, and measles has not been determined to be the cause of death.

In October 2025, Governor Shapiro said that the vaccine industry is economically beneficial for Pennsylvania. He said, “More than half of all vaccines administered in the United States come from a facility here in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. This vaccine production is responsible for 4,700 jobs of our fellow Pennsylvanians and generates 4.74 billion dollars for our economy.”

Governor Shapiro continued by saying vaccines are big business for the state of Pennsylvania. “Our health, our safety, and our economy all depend on people having access to vaccines. And sadly, RFK Jr. and the president want to try and take that away from us.”

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported in May 2026 that Governor Shapiro “fast-tracked” a proposal backed by Merck, the manufacturer of the MMR vaccine and other pharmaceutical products, “to ease water pollution reporting requirements,” but the proposal was later withdrawn. The administration also celebrated a $3.5 billion investment from Eli Lilly in January for a large manufacturing facility, with $100 million invested by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.