Florida plans to become first state to eliminate all childhood vaccine
mandates
[September 04, 2025]
By CURT ANDERSON
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — Florida plans to become the first state to
eliminate vaccine mandates, a longtime cornerstone of public health
policy for keeping schoolchildren and adults safe from infectious
diseases.
State Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo, who announced the decision
Wednesday, cast current requirements in schools and elsewhere as
“immoral” intrusions on people's rights that hamper parents' ability to
make health decisions for their children.
“People have a right to make their own decisions, informed decisions,”
Ladapo, who has frequently clashed with the medical establishment, said
at a news conference in Valrico. “They don’t have the right to tell you
what to put in your body. Take it away from them.”
Florida's move, a significant departure from decades of public policy
and research that has shown vaccines to be safe and the most effective
way to stop the spread of communicable diseases, especially among
schoolchildren, is a notable embrace of the Trump administration's
agenda led by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime
anti-vaccine activist.
Dr. Rana Alissa, chair of the Florida Chapter of the American Academy of
Pediatrics, said removing vaccines puts students and school staff at
greater risk.
“When everyone in a school is vaccinated, it is harder for diseases to
spread and easier for everyone to continue learning and having fun,”
Alissa said in an email. “When children are sick and miss school,
caregivers also miss work, which not only impacts those families but
also the local economy.”
Democratic state Rep. Anna Eskamani, who is running for Orlando mayor,
said in a social media post that scrapping vaccines “is reckless and
dangerous” and could cause outbreaks of preventable disease.
“This is a public health disaster in the making for the Sunshine State,”
Eskamani said on the social platform X.
Amid turmoil at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
caused by Kennedy's extensive restructuring and downsizing, the
Democratic governors of Washington, Oregon and California announced
Wednesday that they had created an alliance to safeguard health
policies, contending that the administration is politicizing public
health decisions. The partnership plans to align immunization plans
based on recommendations from respected national medical organizations,
according to a joint statement from the states' governors.
Vaccines have saved at least 154 million lives globally over the past 50
years, the World Health Organization reported in 2024. The majority of
those were infants and children.
“Vaccines are among the most powerful inventions in history, making
once-feared diseases preventable,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus,
WHO director-general.
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Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo gestures as speaks to
supporters and members of the media before a bill signing by Gov.
Ron DeSantis, Nov. 18, 2021, in Brandon, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris
O'Meara, File)
 In Florida, vaccine mandates for
child day care facilities and public schools include shots for
measles, chickenpox, hepatitis B, diphtheria-tetanus-acellular
pertussis, polio and other diseases, according to the state Health
Department’s website.
Ladapo didn't give a timeline for the changes but
said the department can scrap its own rules for some vaccine
mandates, though others would require action by the Florida
Legislature. He did not specify any particular vaccines but repeated
several times that the effort would end “all of them. Every last one
of them.”
The American Medical Association issued a statement saying Florida’s
plan to end vaccine mandates “would undermine decades of public
health progress.”
“While there is still time, we urge Florida to reconsider this
change to help prevent a rise of infectious disease outbreaks that
put health and lives at risk,” said Dr. Sandra Adamson Fryhofer, an
AMA trustee.
Under Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, Florida resisted imposing COVID
vaccines on schoolchildren during the pandemic, requiring
“passports” for places that draw crowds, school closures and
mandates that workers get the shots to keep their jobs.
“I don’t think there’s another state that’s done as much as Florida.
We want to stay ahead of the curve,” the governor said.
DeSantis also announced the creation of a state “Make America
Healthy Again” commission Wednesday modeled after similar
initiatives that Kennedy established at the federal level.
The commission would look into such things as allowing informed
consent in medical matters, promoting safe and nutritious food,
boosting parental rights in medical decisions about their children
and eliminating “medical orthodoxy that is not supported by the
data,” DeSantis said. The commission will be chaired by Lt. Gov. Jay
Collins and Florida first lady Casey DeSantis.
The commission's work will help inform a large “medical freedom
package” to be introduced in the Legislature next session, which
would address the vaccine mandates required by state law and make
permanent the recent state COVID decisions relaxing restrictions,
DeSantis said.
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