Massachusetts will ditch federal vaccine recommendations in favor of its own

Matthew Medsger, Boston Herald on Sep 4, 2025

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BOSTON — Faced with what she described as “dereliction of duty” by the Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services and its Secretary, Gov. Maura Healey declared on Thursday that Massachusetts will go its own way when it comes to deciding which vaccines are safe and recommended for patients.

After the Trump administration announced Wednesday it would sharply curtail who could and could not get a COVID-19 vaccine, and even as members of Congress grilled Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kenned Jr. about that and other controversial public health decisions, Healey also said that the Bay State will join a growing list of states looking to uncouple their public health policies and recommendations from those offered by the federal government.

According to the governor, going forward, the state’s Public Health Commissioner will decide which vaccinations are approved for use in the Bay State, “and not the CDC.” The change is necessary, she said, because Secretary Kennedy is abandoning science in favor of “taking people down this crazy, zany rabbit-hole of conspiracy.”

“I’m not about playing politics. This is about public health. This is about our responsibility as states — and those of us privileged to serve — to make sure that we’re doing right by people,” she said.

The governor said that her administration has issued a bulletin to the state’s health insurers instructing them to continue to provide insurance coverage for vaccines recommended by the Department of Public Health and not just those approved by the CDC. The Bay State is the first in the nation, according to the governor’s office, to “guarantee insurance coverage of vaccines recommended by the state.”

Healey’s administration has also instructed pharmacies to continue offering new COVID-19 vaccine boosters to patients who want them, despite the FDA’s recent announcement the shots were only approved for widespread use by seniors, and not approved for use by healthy adults and children.

Vaccine portals for Walgreens and CVS pharmacies should be open for COVID shot scheduling on Friday, the governor said, after they were briefly shut to some U.S. patients “because of changes made by the Trump Administration.”

“That changes today, at least in Massachusetts,” she said.

Healey said to help ensure the public health of the state and the whole nation, she was forming a public health collaboration with “states in New England and across the northeast” to come up with regional health recommendations.

This comes after California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek and Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson announced the launch of a West Coast Alliance on Wednesday so that those three Pacific states could coordinate public health recommendations in the face of federal headwinds.

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