Select Page State Orders Pause on J&J Vaccine Use By State House News Service | Apr 13, 2021 | Reprints | Print The Massachusetts Department of Public Health on Tuesday directed all providers to pause administration of Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines, responding to a federal recommendation that those particular shots not be given while the Food and Drug Administration and Center for Disease Control review six cases of a rare and severe blood clot reported in women who had received the vaccine. With more than 6.8 million J&J doses administered in the U.S. as of Monday, the CDC and FDA said they were making the move out of an abundance of caution. State data show that 181,034 people in Massachusetts had received the J&J vaccine as of Monday.