Florida aims to end all state vaccine requirements

What happened

Florida plans to become the first U.S. state to end all vaccine mandates, including immunization requirements for schoolchildren, state Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said Wednesday. Hours before Florida's announcement, the Democratic governors of California, Oregon and Washington said they were forming a West Coast Health Alliance to coordinate immunization policy as Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cuts vaccine access and installs fellow anti-vaccine activists at the FDA and CDC.

Who said what

"Every last" vaccine requirement is "wrong and drips with disdain and slavery," Ladapo said at Wednesday's press conference. "Your body is a gift from God," and "who am I to tell you" what to put in it. Ladapo, a "vocal denigrator of vaccines," has faced "repeated criticism from others in his field for his stances on public health," said The New York Times. His "misinformation" about the Covid-19 vaccine "prompted a public rebuke" from the CDC in 2023.

The Ladapo-DeSantis plan is "a terrible thing for public health," said Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a physician. Florida is "going to start having vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks at school," including "children who come to school with measles and infect other people" who are unvaccinated or immunocompromised. Most states have responded to pushback over longstanding school vaccine requirements by creating religious as well as medical exemptions, but Florida's total revocation is "probably going to be catastrophic," Columbia University vaccine history expert James Colgrove told The Washington Post. "Anyone who knows anything about public health can see this is a train wreck."

The DeSantis administration said it can unilaterally end vaccine mandates "not written into state law," said Axios. But school immunization against polio, diphtheria, measles, mumps, rubella, pertussis and tetanus is required by state law, the Post said, and "getting rid of those would require lawmaker approval."

What next?

DeSantis said Wednesday that a new state-level "Make America Healthy Again" panel chaired by his wife would create a "medical freedom package" to introduce in next year's legislative session.

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