WESTFORD — The chaos and confusion caused by changes to federal recommendations for who should get some vaccines is new.
But the advice from local doctors and medical experts remains the same because they say the scientific research supporting use of these vaccines has not changed.
Local doctors say: COVID-19 vaccines for children and adults and the MMR vaccine and its variation, the MMRV vaccine, which are given to children, are all safe and effective and they are used to reduce the severity of these diseases and also prevent hospitalizations and death.
Both local doctors and national physician organizations are encouraging nearly all people age 6 months and older to get a yearly COVID-19 vaccine this fall.
They also are recommending that parents continue to vaccinate their children with the MMR or MMRV vaccines for measles, mumps, rubella and varicella, more commonly known as chickenpox.
These vaccines should be available locally due to actions taken by Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey to ensure vaccine availability and insurance coverage.
Background on federal recommendations
President Donald Trump’s decision to recommend Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services was a controversial one because Kennedy is a well-known vaccine skeptic and he was approved to oversee national public health efforts, which typically promote and employ vaccines as a method to eliminate or control infectious diseases in our communities.
According to a PBS online article: “Kennedy, who has historically advocated against vaccines, promised during his Senate confirmation hearing that he would ‘do nothing as HHS secretary that makes it difficult or discourages people from taking’ vaccines.”
When asked during his hearing if he accepted that “a million Americans died from COVID,” Kennedy said he did not know how many Americans had died.
More than 1 million Americans have died from COVID-19 since the pandemic began in January 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an agency of the department that Kennedy now leads.
Preliminary CDC estimates from Oct. 1, 2024 through Sept. 20, 2025 are that there have been between 13.8 million and 20.3 million COVID-19 illnesses in the United States and between 44,000 and 63,000 Americans are estimated to have died from the disease just during the last year.
Recently, Trump made factually incorrect comments about childhood vaccines, saying to reporters on Air Force One, “Even beyond the actual ingredients, they have sometimes 80 different vaccines … It’s like you’re shooting up a horse,” according to an online article on the website of Poynter, a global journalism nonprofit.
Poynter tallied the various ways vaccines are administered to children and found that the president’s estimate was not close. CDC does not recommend 80 vaccines for kids. It recommends 11 vaccinations for kids age 10 and younger, according to Poynter.
The federal vaccine panel recommended that patients talk with their doctors prior to getting a COVID-19 vaccine and states have different pharmacy policies for vaccine administration, which has caused some confusion and access issues for patients nationwide.
Adults and older children in Massachusetts do not need a prescription to go to a pharmacy and get a COVID-19 vaccine.
Doctors say vaccines work
“I think what’s happened is just truly unprecedented and scary,” said Stephan Goupil, DO, PhD, of Extended Healthspans in Westford, a lifestyle medicine practice. “The leadership, RFK Jr. in particular, is dangerous and unqualified and their recommendations are sowing doubt and confusion and are going to lead to what would have been preventable deaths both in adults and children.”
Goupil is a lifestyle medicine doctor and has also worked as a family medicine doctor. He is a member of the Westford Board of Health.
He said this year’s COVID-19 vaccine is recommended for nearly everyone age 6 months and older, including healthy adults, healthy children, pregnant women and people at high-risk of getting severe COVID.
Scientists are in consensus that these vaccines work and they are safe, Goupil said.
Not only do they work for the people who receive them, the COVID-19 vaccine creates a safer environment by reducing spread of the disease in the community and protects people who cannot get the vaccines — like newborn babies and people with weakened immune systems and also the elderly, who may get the COVID vaccine, but may still be at a higher risk for complications should they contract COVID, Goupil said.
The risks of having a complication from getting the COVID-19 vaccine are “incredibly low,” Goupil said, adding, those risks include rare allergic reaction and infections at the injection site.
The vaccine will carry a new warning label to alert people of the risk of myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle. Goupil said in the days following vaccine administration, myocarditis has been noted for some groups, but these risks are low compared to the high death rates and hospitalizations associated with COVID.
Sometimes, Goupil’s patients will tell him they don’t need the COVID shot because “I don’t plan on getting sick.” He said he understands that sentiment, but encourages them to think about vaccines as a seat belt in a car — an extra layer of protection.
He said people in Massachusetts do not need a prescription to get a COVID-19 shot and can go to their local pharmacy or ask their doctor.
MMR and MMRV vaccines
Brenda Anders Pring, MD, president of the Massachusetts Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said what the federal vaccine board discussed was not necessarily giving the MMRV dose at age 12 months.
That is not typically what Massachusetts doctors do, so these new recommendations might have “very minimal impact here,” Pring said.
In Massachusetts, generally, at 12 months, the first dose of the MMR vaccine is given, and in a separate shot, children receive the first dose of the varicella (chickenpox) vaccine. Then, between age 4 and 6, there is a combination shot of the second dose of the MMRV that includes varicella, Pring said.
“I think, overall, they are causing a lot of confusion, and, potentially, a little bit of chaos in the vaccine world,” Pring said. “And parents who just want to do the right thing for their children don’t know what the right thing is.”
Matthew Chamberlain, MD, of Acton Medical Associates said, “the recent chaos is not the consensus.”
Part of the concern in the public about the MMRV vaccine is related to a small risk of febrile seizure after receiving the vaccine in children younger than age 4, said Chamberlain, who is a pediatrician.
According to the Cleveland Clinic, febrile seizures are caused by abnormal electrical activity when a child has a fever. Febrile seizures can lead to uncontrollable shaking, occurring most often in children age 3 and younger. The clinic’s website states that most febrile seizures are not considered dangerous, but they can be worrying for parents.
The risk of these seizures is small, Chamberlain said, adding, because of that, some families might still prefer to have their child receive a combination shot.
The two doses of measles vaccinations are about 98 percent effective at preventing measles, he said.
Measles can be a serious disease that can lead to hearing loss, vision loss and meningitis, which can cause brain damage.
This year, West Texas had an outbreak of measles. Between January and early August, there were 762 confirmed measles cases. Two school children who lived in the outbreak area and were unvaccinated and also had no known underlying conditions died, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services.
“Thankfully, we have not seen measles cases in Massachusetts, but we are keeping an eye out,” Chamberlain said. He said his practice has a protocol for alerting contacts of the person with the measles case to control the spread of the disease.
