Healey vows to keep kids' vaccines available in Mass. as federal panel considers changes

Gov. Maura Healey and her top health officials on Wednesday promised to keep vaccines available for Massachusetts families, even if the Trump administration weakens or substantially alters federal recommendations for vaccines given to babies.

Surrounded by doctors and state health officials in Boston, Healey said she wanted to correct what she called the federal government’s “egregious untruths and misstatements” about vaccines, including the debunked claim that vaccines may cause autism.

“We’re going to give you information that is backed by science and data,” Healey said. “Vaccines are safe and effective, and vaccines will continue to be available in Massachusetts, no matter what happens in D.C.”

Federal officials make recommendations about vaccines, but states can set their own policies.

Healey’s statements came a day before a federal advisory panel meets to discuss changes to the childhood vaccination schedule, including the shots that protect against hepatitis B.

The current recommendation is that babies receive their initial dose of the hepatitis B vaccine within 24 hours of birth, with two more doses in the following months. Hepatitis B can be passed from mothers to babies, and it can spread on surfaces. Children with hepatitis B can develop lifelong liver disease.

Infections in children have fallen 99% since the recommendation to begin vaccinating infants at birth was issued in 1991. But some critics argue that the vaccine should be given only to infants whose mothers have the virus.

Already, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices has stopped recommending a combination shot given to some children, which protects against measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox.

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. remade the committee earlier this year by including several people who have been skeptical of vaccines. Kennedy formerly worked as an anti-vaccine activist.

Emily Hilliard, a spokesperson for Kennedy’s Department of Health and Human Services, said the department “remains committed to ensuring that all Americans have access to safe, effective vaccines supported by transparent, independent scientific review.”

She said Healey’s comments are “driven more by politics than by science.”

Healey has clashed with the Trump administration on vaccines for months. She has taken steps to make COVID vaccines available for free to Massachusetts residents and joined a coalition of states writing their own health policies.

Last month, after the CDC suggested a possible connection between vaccines and autism — even though numerous studies have found no such link — Massachusetts Public Health Commissioner Dr. Robbie Goldstein said the agency could no longer be trusted. Goldstein told WBUR his department was scrubbing links to CDC data from state websites.

“The guidance emerging from CDC at this moment, with this administration, does not reflect the best, most current science,” Goldstein said Wednesday. “It does not meet the standard that children and families deserve.”

Vaccine hesitancy is on the rise in Massachusetts and across the country, according to polls, state vaccination data, and medical groups. Many doctors and public health experts fear trust in science will erode further as Trump and Kennedy continue to raise doubts about vaccines that have been studied and determined to be safe for years.

“Fighting mis- and disinformation, unfortunately, is 90% of my job on any given day,” Goldstein said. “That's the reality of public health in this moment with Secretary Kennedy at the federal level. The best that we can do is go out and speak truth every single day, and hope that people will listen to us.”