Florida plans to become the first state to eliminate vaccine mandates that have been a cornerstone of public health policy for decades in keeping schoolchildren and citizens safe from infectious diseases.
State Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo cast current requirements in schools and elsewhere as an “immoral” intrusion on rights that hampers 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 Wednesday at a news conference at Grace Christian School in Valrico. “They don’t have the right to tell you what to put in your body. Take it away from them.”
The 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, comes amid turmoil at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention fueled by extensive restructuring and downsizing under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist
In Florida, vaccine mandates for 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. The state also allows religious and medical exemptions.
The department, Ladapo said, can scrap its own rules for some vaccine mandates, but others would require action by the 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.”
“Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery,” Ladapo said. “Your body is a gift from God. What you put into your body, what you put into your body is because of your relationship with your body and your God. I don't have that right. Government does not have that right.”
Florida MAHA commission
During the gathering, Gov. Ron DeSantis also announced the creation of a state-level “Make America Healthy Again” commission, modeled after similar initiatives established at the federal level by Kennedy.
The commission would look into such things as allowing informed consent in medical matters, promoting safe and nutritious food, boosting parental rights regarding 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 first lady Casey DeSantis. It will include Ladapo, Agency for Health Care Administration Secretary Shevaun Harris, Department of Children and Families Secretary Taylor Hatch, Department of Elder Affairs Secretary Michelle Branham and Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Alexis Lambert.
The commission's work will help inform a large “medical freedom package” to be introduced in the Legislature next session, which would address the mandates required by state law and make permanent the recent state COVID decisions relaxing restrictions, DeSantis said.
Under 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.
Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas and Lt. Gov. Jay Collins were also at the Valrico gathering to back the effort to end madates.
Kamoutsas said the change will “strengthen the rights that the governor has championed for years.”
Collins echoed Ladapo in saying parents should have the final say in what goes into their children.
“We have to protect the rights of parents to make medical decisions for their families, to feed their families how they want, what they want, when they want, because that's their family, and it's not the government's choice to tell them what to eat or how to eat,” Collins said.
Democrats and medical groups react
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,” she wrote on X.
ALSO READ: Medical mistrust, religious exemptions cited in sharp drop of Florida immunizations
The Florida chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics warned that phasing out vaccines would put children at a "higher risk of getting sick" and would have a "ripple effect" across society.
"When everyone in a school is vaccinated, it is harder for diseases to spread and easier for everyone to continue learning and having fun," chapter president Rana Alissa said.
"When children are sick and miss school, caregivers also miss work, which not only impacts those families, but also the local economy," she added.
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.
U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, a Democrat whose district covers the Tampa Bay area, said in a statement that “immunizations are key to a long, healthy life free from serious illnesses. This misguided announcement likely will raise costs and complicate easy access.”
Governor DeSantis Announces Florida MAHA Commission and Medical Freedom Protections https://t.co/o4lglzuXAT
— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) September 3, 2025
The American Medical Association also said it opposes the plan to end all vaccine mandates and is urging Florida to reconsider the change to help prevent any rise of infectious disease outbreaks.
"This unprecedented rollback would undermine decades of public health progress and place children and communities at increased risk for diseases such as measles, mumps, polio, and chickenpox resulting in serious illness, disability, and even death," American Medical Association Trustee Sandra Adamson Fryhofer said.
The Florida Education Association said the move puts "our children's health and education at risk" by "disrupting student learning and making schools less safe."
Beyond Florida, the Democratic governors of Washington, Oregon and California announced Wednesday that they had created an alliance to safeguard health policies, contending that the Trump administration is politicizing public health decisions.
The partnership plans to coordinate health guidelines by aligning immunization plans based on recommendations from respected national medical organizations, according to a joint statement from Gov. Bob Ferguson of Washington, Gov. Tina Kotek of Oregon and Gov. Gavin Newsom of California.
Information from WUSF's Kerry Sheridan and News Service of Florida was used in this report.
