In win for infectious diseases, Florida to end all school vaccine requirements

Florida is planning to end all vaccination requirements in the state, including requirements for school children to get routine childhood vaccinations that protect them and their communities from severe and life-threatening diseases, such as Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib), pertussis (whooping cough), diphtheria, measles, tetanus, RSV, and polio.

Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo made the announcement at a press conference on Wednesday alongside Governor Ron DeSantis.

"What I'm most excited about is an announcement that we're making now, which is that the Florida Department of Health, in partnership with the governor, is going to be working to end all vaccine mandates in Florida law—all of them, all of them, all of them, every last one of them," Ladapo said. "Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery."

Ladapo, who has a history of being anti-vaccine and spreading misinformation, went on to argue against the public aspect of public health, saying that there is "no ethical basis" for requiring vaccination to, in part, protect the most vulnerable from infectious diseases. That vulnerable people, such as newborns and the immunocompromised, may be unnecessarily exposed to vaccine-preventable, life-threatening diseases is just "part of the experience of life," Ladapo claimed. He also called mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, which saved millions of lives at the height of the pandemic, "poison."