Vaccines: what physicians say, in their own words

Last updated September 20, 2026.

Read together, the 545 essays and podcast transcripts on this page are a profession that agrees about the science and has argued for fifteen years about everything else: how to talk to the parent who refuses, whether to keep that family in the practice, whether hospitals should require flu shots of their staff, whether school exemptions should exist, and who is to blame, Wakefield, celebrities, alternative-schedule pediatricians, the internet, or the messaging itself. The subject moves from autism and thimerosal in the 2000s to measles outbreaks and school law in the 2010s to federal vaccine policy since 2025, with the exam-room conversation constant underneath. The autism claim appears in 38 percent of posts in 2017 to 2019, falls to 1 percent during the pandemic, and is back in 24 percent since 2023. Physicians on KevinMD are close to unanimous that vaccines are safe and that refusal endangers others; the disagreements recorded here are about what to do with that.

This page is a maintained record of what physicians have written about vaccines and vaccine hesitancy on KevinMD.com, a physician-authored publication founded in 2004 by Kevin Pho, MD, a board-certified internal medicine physician in Nashua, New Hampshire. It draws on 545 essays and podcast transcripts with vaccine, vaccination, immunization, measles, HPV, flu shot, or a related term in the title, published between October 2004 and September 2026 by 274 named contributors, 325 of the posts bylined by physicians. Of the 545, 320 were published before 2020, which makes this the longest record on the site of how physicians talked about vaccine refusal before the pandemic made the subject everyone’s. The 101 posts about COVID-19 vaccines are part of the COVID-19 record and are counted here but cited sparingly. Every claim on this page is attributed to a named author with the date it was published and a link to the original.

The sections below are organized around the questions physicians, parents, hospital leaders, legislators, and journalists ask. Each opens with a direct answer, followed by what named authors have said, in the order they said it. Where authors cite studies or figures, the source is named alongside the author, and the figures are theirs as of the date they wrote. This is a page about physician opinion and experience, not immunization guidance.

What do physicians say about the vaccine-autism claim?

Physicians on KevinMD have treated the claim as settled since the site began, and the record traces its afterlife: Andrew Wakefield’s 1998 paper, retracted in 2010 and described on the site as fraud in 2011; thimerosal, removed from vaccines in 1999 without any change in autism rates; the too-many-too-soon hypothesis that replaced both; and the celebrities and alternative-schedule physicians who carried the claim after the science was gone. Autism or Wakefield appears in 34 to 38 percent of posts from 2013 to 2019, falls to 1 percent during the pandemic, and returns to 24 percent since 2023, when federal officials revived it.

Kevin Pho, MD, wrote in August 2009 that a baby vaccinated on the CDC schedule “will have immunity to over 14 diseases by the age of two,” and that Dr. Bob Sears was “advocating for a medically untested vaccine schedule,” in “Why following a delayed vaccine schedule may be dangerous.” Toni Brayer, MD, wrote in January 2011 that that 13 years on, “thousands of parents are afraid of vaccinating their children because of this fraudulent scheme,” in “How the vaccine and autism scare was a fraud to make money.” Roy Benaroch, MD, a pediatrician and the most frequent contributor on the topic, wrote in April 2013 that the MMR link “turned out to be a complete fabrication,” that thimerosal “was removed from almost all vaccines in 1999” and rates of autism did not fall, and that the newest version was the too-many-too-soon hypothesis, in “It’s time to put the vaccine-autism link behind us.” Jennifer Gunter, MD, wrote in June 2014 that “It’s his alternative or selective vaccine schedule they use, not McCarthy’s or Wakefield’s,” in “Dr. Bob Sears deserves blame for declining vaccination rates.”

How do physicians say they talk to a parent who refuses?

The exam-room conversation is the constant of the record. Physicians on KevinMD describe what does not work, correcting facts and telling stories of sick children, both of which one study found made the most skeptical parents less likely to vaccinate, and what they try instead: listening, comparing risks to ones parents already accept, and keeping the family in care. Mentions of the conversation rose from none before 2009 to 48 percent since 2023; parents or pediatrics appear in 87 percent of posts from 2017 to 2019.

Christopher Johnson, MD, a pediatric intensivist, wrote in October 2013 that “Parents want no risk; physicians would like that, too, but realize there is no such thing,” and proposed comparing vaccine risk to the risk of a car accident, in “A strategy to approach patients who don’t believe in vaccines.” Wendy Sue Swanson, MD, wrote in August 2013 that in a study of about 200 parents, every parent on a delayed schedule cited a source network of books or the internet, and that “the social network surrounding parents are a powerful determinate of how parents immunize their children,” in “Social networks influence parents’ vaccine decisions.” Roy Benaroch, MD, wrote in March 2014 that a study found “specific evidence about the lack of a credible MMR-autism link further decreased the intent to vaccine” among the most skeptical parents, and that a dramatic story about a child with measles increased their perception of vaccine side effects, in “The failure of vaccine messages.”

Jennifer Gunter, MD, asked in December 2010 whether “the press helped undo the conspiracy theory behind vaccines, or is good science just not newsworthy?” in “Conspiracies against vaccines: Blame the media,” and wrote in October 2014 that her son “is exactly the kind of child who should come to mind when one thinks of herd immunity,” in “My son depends on herd immunity, so thanks for getting your flu shot.” Chad Hayes, MD, a pediatrician, wrote in February 2015 about “the critical need for better education and communication between doctors and vaccine-hesitant parents,” and that measles cases had fallen “by over 99 percent since 1963,” in “So what’s the big deal about measles?” Brian Elkins, MD, wrote in June 2015 a letter to hesitant parents, because “I needed a respectful and informative way to follow up with parents who expressed concerns or declined vaccinations,” in “A letter to parents hesitant about vaccines.” Sean Gallagher, MD, a pediatrician, wrote in June 2017 that after he reviewed an anti-vaccination book online, the organization’s account called him a pharma robot “within ten tweets of our own separate conversation,” and that he got louder, in “Anonymous anti-vaccination Twitter accounts attacks this pediatrician. He gets louder.” Lindsey Sachs, Lauren Brick, and Vijay Rajput, MD, wrote in June 2026 of a physician who found that a parent’s resistance “was not entirely rooted in immunology but rather emphasized issues with language, trust, identity, and emotion,” and who reframed the conversation rather than citing efficacy data, in “Vaccine hesitancy is a language problem, not just science.”

Should a practice keep families who refuse? Physicians disagree.

This is the one question about parents on which physicians on KevinMD divide. Some pediatricians require vaccination as a condition of care and say so; others write that dismissing hesitant families sends them to clinicians who will feed their mistrust and removes the only physician who might have changed their minds. The argument has run since 2012 and has grown: posts mentioning dismissal from practice rose from none before 2013 to 13 percent since 2023.

Nelson Branco, MD, a pediatrician, wrote in May 2012 that “we will require that all patients age 2 and older be immunized with the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine” to remain in his practice, in a year when the CDC was warning of measles importation from the Olympics, in “Why this pediatrician makes the MMR vaccine mandatory in his practice.” Natasha Burgert, MD, a pediatrician, wrote in March 2015 to colleagues who had adopted such policies that “it is with a heavy heart you are watching some families now leave your care,” and that her practice never promotes a non-standard schedule but keeps the families, in “A letter to physicians refusing to see vaccine-hesitant families.” Michael D. Pappas, MD, a pediatrician, wrote in August 2017 that there is “a growing trend among us professionals to discharge or” kick out “children from our medical practices because their parents have chosen not to vaccinate them,” and argued against it, in “Why pediatricians should not kick out unvaccinated children.” Sean Gallagher, MD, wrote in July 2021 that refused parents “sometimes wind up with quacks caring for their children,” in clinics “with charlatans that have a financial interest in furthering their mistrust,” in “The non-acceptance of vaccine-hesitant families is a problem in pediatrics.”

What do physicians say about measles and school exemptions?

Measles is the disease physicians on KevinMD use to make the case, and the record follows the outbreaks: San Diego in 2008, Disneyland in 2014 and 2015, Minnesota’s Somali community in 2017, New York in 2019, and the return since 2024. The policy question is exemptions: physicians on the site have argued since 2014 that personal-belief exemptions should end, and have documented the medical exemptions that replaced them in California. Measles or outbreaks appear in about half of posts from 2009 to 2019 and 48 percent since 2023; school requirements in up to 45 percent.

Amy Tuteur, MD, wrote in June 2010 that “Virtually every single empirical claim of vaccine rejectionism is factually false,” and that San Diego “ought to present a bill for $125,000 to the parents of the intentionally unvaccinated child” who introduced measles into the city, in “Measles from rejecting vaccines, and the price society pays.” Albert Fuchs, MD, wrote in December 2014 that “If parents’ refusal to vaccinate their kids only endangered them, we might only raise our eyebrows in disapproval,” in “Those who refuse vaccines endanger all of our kids.” Roy Benaroch, MD, wrote in January 2015 of the Disneyland measles outbreak that “Almost all of the cases reported have been in unvaccinated children,” and that “With two doses, as recommended, there’s about 99 percent protection,” in “Measles in Disneyland: How is the media reacting?”

Ana B. Ibarra and Barbara Feder Ostrov reported in September 2017 that after the Disneyland outbreak produced 147 cases across seven states, California ended the personal-belief exemption, and that the rise in medical waivers “suggests that anti-vaccine parents may be finding doctors willing to exempt their kids,” in “How anti-vaccine parents are finding doctors willing to exempt their kids.” Christopher Johnson, MD, wrote in March 2014 that quarantine has been a federal power since 1944 and that “these measures restrict our personal freedom a little, but what about government-mandated medical treatment,” in “Vaccines: An unprecedented use of state power?” Shetal Shah, MD, a neonatologist, wrote in June 2019 that with about 850 measles cases in 25 states, 75 percent of them originating in New York, an exposed child “infects up to 95 percent of those at-risk children around them,” and that exemptions should be medical only, in “School vaccine exemptions must be for medical conditions only,” and in May 2020 that “only 0.9 percent of children in school held religious vaccine exemptions” in New York, in “Eliminating religious exemptions from school vaccination in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic.” Robert Bettis, MD, wrote in March 2025 that measles, “A disease targeted for elimination by the CDC in 1978,” was returning, in “How vaccine hesitancy is bringing back deadly childhood diseases.” Christine King, CRNA, wrote in September 2026 that “There were 460 confirmed measles cases in Pennsylvania as of Friday, August 28,” and that the country “is on track to lose its measles elimination status” when the Pan American Health Organization reviews the data in November 2026, in “The Pennsylvania measles outbreak and the cost of forgetting.”

Should hospitals require flu shots of their staff? Physicians disagree.

Staff influenza vaccination is the second question on which the record divides. Most physicians on KevinMD write that health care workers owe it to patients and that it is not about them; a smaller number, and several nurses and students, write that mandates with termination as the penalty are coercion and that the patient’s right to refuse should extend to the clinician. Flu or influenza appears in 17 to 53 percent of posts across the record; mandates in up to 15 percent.

Kevin Pho, MD, wrote in October 2009 that “physicians and other health care workers have too often been lax about following this advice” on flu immunization, in “Flu and H1N1 influenza vaccine recommendations for doctors and health care workers.” Norman H. Edelman, MD, of the American Lung Association wrote in October 2011 that “One way we can help ensure that we are doing our job the best way possible” is the annual flu shot, in “Healthcare professionals need to get an annual flu shot.” Claire McCarthy, MD, a pediatrician at Boston Children’s, wrote in October 2013 that “Plain old refusal isn’t an option for me”, as a doctor and an employee of a children’s hospital, in “Getting the flu shot isn’t about you.” Jennifer Adaeze Anyaegbunam, then a medical student, wrote in January 2014 of a patient who refused the shot every year, and asked whether physicians infringe on “your right to choose your care,” in “Refusing the flu shot: Respecting the patient’s right to choose.” Jennifer Variste, MD, wrote in January 2018 five reasons to get the shot in a year it was reported to be only 10 percent effective, in “So the flu shot is only 10 percent effective. Here are 5 reasons to still get it.”

What do physicians say about adult vaccines, pertussis, and shingles?

A quieter thread in the record is the vaccines adults skip. Physicians on KevinMD wrote about the pertussis resurgence of 2010 and the case for vaccinating the adults around infants, and about the shingles vaccine, which physicians themselves were slow to offer because it cost about $200, was rarely covered, and had to be stored frozen. Nearly all of these posts predate 2013, and several are not indexed and are counted here without being cited.

Kevin Pho, MD, noted in October 2006 that lax exemption laws were producing whooping cough, and in May 2007 that the shingles vaccine was a burden to practices; both are short commentaries, counted here but not indexed or linked, as are Danielle Ofri, MD, PhD, on the vaccine’s cost in June 2010 and Linda Pourmassina, MD, on Tdap in January 2011. Roy Benaroch, MD, wrote in September 2010 that for newborns pertussis is much worse because “they can’t tolerate the respiratory infection, and sometimes just stop breathing,” and that all adults with babies should receive Tdap, in “Why you need the pertussis vaccine, especially if you have children.” A. Lane Baldwin, MD, wrote in January 2026 that the ACIP “had voted against offering universal administration of hepatitis B vaccine at birth, opposing the long-standing practice endorsed by experts,” in “Why ACIP’s ruling on universal hepatitis B vaccination endangers newborns.”

What do physicians say about the HPV vaccine?

The HPV vaccine has its own thread in the record, because it arrived in 2006 with a sexual-transmission stigma no other vaccine carried and because uptake stayed low for a decade after. Physicians on KevinMD argued for giving it to boys in 2011, documented the Katie Couric segment that set it back in 2013, and by 2017 were asking why fewer than half of children were getting a vaccine against six cancers. HPV appears in 10 to 18 percent of posts before 2020 and 9 percent since 2023.

Roy Benaroch, MD, wrote in April 2011 that about 70 to 80 percent of cervical cancers “could be prevented by widespread use of these vaccines,” and that boys can spread HPV to future partners, in “Should the HPV vaccine be given to boys?” Orly Avitzur, MD, wrote in December 2011 that “I had discussed the subject with my two teenage sons and prodded their physician” to give them the HPV vaccine, in “Why I vaccinated my sons against HPV.” Natasha Burgert, MD, wrote in February 2014 that Couric’s December 2013 segment “ignited a digital firestorm between pro- and anti-vaccine voices that raged for days,” in “Analyzing the Katie Couric effect on the vaccine conversation.” Electra D. Paskett, PhD, wrote in February 2017 that trials showed “close to 100 percent protection against cervical precancers” and a 64 percent reduction in targeted infections over a decade, yet “adoption of it has been slow and surprising low,” in “We have a vaccine for six cancers. Why are less than half of kids getting it?” Chad Hayes, MD, wrote in May 2019 that parents ask him whether it is the optional one, and that HPV infects “85 percent of women and 90 percent of men at some point in their lives,” in “No, the HPV vaccine isn’t optional.”

What do physicians say about vaccine policy since 2025?

The record’s newest section is federal. Since 2025 physicians on KevinMD have written about the confirmation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health secretary, changes to the CDC’s advisory committee, the CDC’s revision of its statement that vaccines do not cause autism, and state proposals to drop school requirements. Politics or federal officials appear in 67 percent of posts since 2023, the highest in the record, and the autism claim, at 1 percent during the pandemic, is back in 24 percent. The physicians writing are the same ones who wrote about Wakefield, and they say so.

Shetal Shah, MD, wrote in January 2025 that parents cite Kennedy’s statements linking vaccines to autism, “an association that has been widely discredited by scientific research,” and that kindergarten immunization against measles had fallen to 92.7 percent, “low enough to fuel 16 outbreaks of measles last year,” in “As Robert F. Kennedy Jr. faces confirmation, a look at his vaccine stance.” The American College of Physicians wrote in August 2025 that the Vaccine Integrity Project “could become the lead trusted voice for vaccine and vaccination information” in the United States, as an alternative to a tainted ACIP, in “How federal actions threaten vaccine policy and trust.” Ronald L. Lindsay, MD, wrote in November 2025 that the statement that vaccines do not cause autism once anchored public health, and that the CDC “just dismantled it, quietly, strategically, and dangerously,” in “Did the CDC just dismantle vaccine safety clarity?,” and in September 2026 that “Florida is evaluating a proposal to eliminate four long-standing school-required vaccines: hepatitis B, varicella, pneumococcal conjugate, and Hib,” in “Why Florida school vaccine requirements may vanish in 2026.”

How has the vaccine conversation changed since 2004?

The record has four periods. From 2004 to 2009 it was Kevin Pho tracking the autism litigation, the alternative schedules, and H1N1. From 2010 to 2019 it was the pediatricians, Benaroch, Swanson, Hayes, Burgert, Gunter, Johnson, writing about the exam room and the outbreaks, with the Disneyland year of 2015 the peak at 40 posts. 2020 to 2022 was COVID, 114 posts in 2021 alone, held on the COVID record. Since 2023 the volume has fallen and the subject has turned to federal policy and the return of measles, with the autism claim, dormant for years, back in nearly a quarter of posts.

Term 2004 to 2008 (70 posts) 2009 to 2012 (92 posts) 2013 to 2016 (103 posts) 2017 to 2019 (55 posts) 2020 to 2022 (179 posts) 2023 to 2026 (46 posts)
Autism or Wakefield 9 percent 18 percent 34 percent 38 percent 1 percent 24 percent
Measles or outbreaks 7 percent 41 percent 48 percent 51 percent 11 percent 48 percent
Parents or pediatrics 20 percent 59 percent 81 percent 87 percent 34 percent 78 percent
Exemptions or refusal 4 percent 22 percent 45 percent 36 percent 38 percent 57 percent
School requirements 0 percent 24 percent 32 percent 45 percent 20 percent 41 percent
The conversation with parents 0 percent 16 percent 35 percent 42 percent 22 percent 48 percent
Dismissing families from practice 0 percent 1 percent 6 percent 7 percent 6 percent 13 percent
Flu or influenza 17 percent 53 percent 35 percent 36 percent 22 percent 39 percent
Staff mandates 4 percent 4 percent 7 percent 15 percent 12 percent 15 percent
HPV 10 percent 17 percent 15 percent 18 percent 1 percent 9 percent
Misinformation or the internet 0 percent 43 percent 38 percent 51 percent 44 percent 54 percent
Celebrities 0 percent 8 percent 24 percent 7 percent 2 percent 0 percent
Politics or federal officials 6 percent 53 percent 35 percent 51 percent 47 percent 67 percent
COVID 0 percent 12 percent 2 percent 4 percent 93 percent 72 percent

Term frequencies are the share of posts in each period using the term at least once, computed on the September 18, 2026 corpus of 545 posts.

Kevin Pho’s 2009 posts on the delayed schedule, H1N1, and the autism court rulings open the record. Tuteur’s San Diego bill in 2010 and Brayer on the Wakefield fraud in 2011 follow; Benaroch on HPV for boys and Branco’s mandatory MMR are 2011 and 2012. The 2013 to 2015 cluster is the largest before the pandemic: Benaroch putting autism behind us and on failed messages, Swanson on social networks, Johnson on the conversation, McCarthy on the flu shot, Burgert on Couric and on refusing families, Gunter on Sears, Fuchs on endangering others, Hayes on Disneyland. Paskett and Pappas in 2017, Ibarra and Ostrov on medical waivers the same year, and Hayes and Shah in 2019 close the pre-pandemic record. Since 2025 it is Shah on Kennedy, the ACP on federal actions, Bettis on the return of childhood diseases, Lindsay on the CDC and then on Florida, Baldwin on the hepatitis B vote, Sachs and colleagues on hesitancy as a language problem, and King on Pennsylvania.

The KevinMD vaccine corpus by the numbers

The figures below describe the set of KevinMD posts this page draws on, as of September 18, 2026. They are counts of what KevinMD has published, not immunization data.

Measure Value
Posts in the corpus 545
Date range October 5, 2004 to September 17, 2026
Posts before 2020 320
Posts about COVID-19 vaccines, held on the COVID-19 record 101
Named contributors 274
Posts bylined by an MD or DO 325
Short posts by Kevin Pho, 2004 to 2011 111, median 115 words
Podcast episodes with full transcripts 12
Posts in the corpus that are not indexed, counted but not cited 136
Total words About 375,000
Peak year before the pandemic 2015, 40 posts
Most frequent contributors Roy Benaroch, MD (14); Jennifer Gunter, MD (11); Christopher Johnson, MD (9); Chad Hayes, MD (8); William Schaffner, MD (8)

How this page was built and how it is updated

The corpus was assembled from title searches for vaccine, vaccines, vaccination, vaccinated, immunization, anti-vax, antivax, measles, HPV, flu shot, Wakefield, herd immunity, pertussis, whooping cough, shingles, and ACIP, with posts about cervical cancer screening that did not concern the vaccine removed. Posts about COVID-19 vaccines are counted but cited sparingly, since the COVID-19 record holds them. Term frequencies were computed against the full text of each post on the corpus assembled for the September 18, 2026 build; this page was converted to the current standard on September 20, 2026 without rebuilding that corpus, so the counts and figures are as of September 18, 2026. Posts are counted whether or not they are indexed; citations on this page are limited to posts that are indexed and can be verified at the link. One hundred thirty-six posts in the corpus are not indexed: Kevin Pho’s 2004 to 2011 commentaries, 13 podcast episodes without transcripts, and about 30 other posts, including several of the 2010 and 2011 essays on shingles and pertussis. They are counted but not cited. Quotations are taken verbatim from the original posts. Author credentials are as they appeared in the byline at publication. Kevin Pho’s posts from 2004 to 2011 were short commentaries on news and studies and are counted separately above. Physicians on KevinMD are near-unanimous on vaccine safety; where they disagree, on dismissing families and on staff mandates, both sides are cited. Every source is linked in the sentence that cites it, and the full list appears at the end of the page. The closest archives are the Pediatrics and Infectious Disease tags. Related records: COVID-19: what physicians wrote as it happened and Race and medicine: what physicians say, in their own words.

This page is updated as new vaccine essays are published on KevinMD. When it is updated, the date at the top changes, the counts in the tables are recomputed, and new named claims are added to the relevant section. Nothing is removed unless the original post is removed. An author who believes a quotation on this page misrepresents them can write to Kevin Pho and the page will be corrected.

To cite this page: Pho K. Vaccines: what physicians say, in their own words. KevinMD.com. Updated September 20, 2026. https://kevinmd.com/vaccines

The 42 KevinMD posts cited on this page, in order of publication