Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey is leading a group of Democrats in demanding answers from the Trump administration over a monthlong delay that stalled distribution of updated COVID-19 vaccines to school-aged children through a federal program that covers more than half the country's kids. Markey sent a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. seeking an explanation for why the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention held up ordering through the Vaccines for Children program even after federal regulators cleared the shots.
The Food and Drug Administration approved the updated vaccines on August 27, according to CIDRAP, but the CDC did not open ordering through the Vaccines for Children program for nearly a month afterward. Manufacturers only began shipping doses to medical offices and pharmacies as early as September 27, per the same report. Markey and other Democratic leaders say the gap left low-income families in the lurch, arguing, as the lawmakers put it, that the delay threatens the same access to vaccinations whether through deliberate obstruction or negligence.
Three weeks after FDA approval, the CDC still had not started the process for states to order the shots through Vaccines for Children, CNN reported. Part of the holdup traces to the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which had not met since March and therefore could not formally vote on the recommendations needed to trigger coverage and distribution under the program. CNN also reported that a federal judge temporarily blocked an HHS overhaul of the vaccine schedule, ruling that Kennedy's replacement of ACIP members did not follow federal legal procedures.
A Program That Covers Half the Country's Kids
The Vaccines for Children program offers free immunizations to more than half of U.S. children, including many with limited insurance access, according to CIDRAP's reporting. Families without that coverage faced steep costs in the meantime: CVS said a pediatric COVID-19 vaccine would run $149.99 out of pocket with no insurance, per CNN. The CDC had not issued new COVID-19 vaccine recommendations for the current season at the time of that report, even as overall hospitalization rates, while still low, have been rising since mid-June.
Markey and other Democrats have accused Kennedy of using the government to push what they call junk science about the reliability of pediatric vaccines, and the senator has separately called for Kennedy's resignation over what Markey characterized as irresponsible anti-vaccine rhetoric and dangerous public health policies, according to a press release from Markey's office. During the delay, Kennedy spoke at a Children’s Health Defense conference and reiterated that vaccines had not been taken away.
Massachusetts Officials Push Back at the State Level
As the federal picture stayed murky, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health issued a standing order in September 2025 authorizing pharmacists to administer COVID-19 vaccine boosters to children ages 5 and older, a move that came amid a 2025 shift in federal guidance toward shared decision-making on COVID-19 shots for healthy children and pregnant women, the Eagle-Tribune reports. Public health officials in Massachusetts have expressed concern about federal vaccine policy changes, according to the same report.
Massachusetts has long positioned itself as a state with stronger-than-average immunization infrastructure. It is a universal vaccine purchaser. The Commonwealth allows religious exemptions to vaccination requirements.
Mixed Signals in the State's Immunization Data
State-level MMR vaccination coverage in Massachusetts remains above national levels, according to a Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health analysis, which found that in 2025, roughly the same share of Massachusetts kindergartners completed the MMR series as the year before, with coverage exceeding the 95% Healthy People 2030 target. The state's non-medical exemption rate among kindergartners in the 2025-26 school year stayed about the same as the prior year, per the same analysis.
Not every metric points in a reassuring direction, however. In 2024, fewer Massachusetts 2-year-olds were fully vaccinated against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis than the year before, with coverage falling below the 90% Healthy People 2030 target, the Johns Hopkins report found. Governor Healey has since signed a supplemental budget bill that included funding for a new public education campaign about childhood and adult vaccines, according to the Eagle-Tribune.
Behind the current dispute sits a broader legal fight over who controls the federal vaccine schedule. Executive Order 14407 described a federal assessment and proposed 2026 updates as a guiding resource, directing the CDC and ACIP to review the assessment and the latest clinical data and, to the extent permitted by law, update child and adolescent immunization schedules, according to a Congressional Research Service product. HHS filed a motion in June asking courts to expedite proceedings in the litigation tied to ACIP's makeup, CNN reported, a fight that remains unresolved even as vaccine shipments finally begin reaching pharmacy shelves.
