Florida officials announce plan to end all state vaccine mandates

Florida would become the first state to end all vaccine mandates, including those for school-age children, Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo announced Wednesday. Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Department of Health would work together to remove all state immunization requirements, he said.

People’s bodies are a gift from God, and the government should not tell people what to put in them, Ladapo said. The state’s health department could end its vaccine rules, but lawmakers needed to get on board to eliminate other vaccine-related requirements, he said.

Several of Florida’s Democratic state senators responded with a statement saying the decision would lead to a resurgence in preventable diseases. All 50 states currently have childhood vaccine mandates, they said. They also argued that Florida already has broad medical and religious exemptions to vaccine mandates.

What did DeSantis announce alongside Ladapo’s vaccine plan? The governor said Florida would establish its own state-level Make America Healthy Again, or MAHA, Commission, mirroring the federal commission of the same name. First Lady Casey DeSantis and Lt. Gov. Jay Collins would chair the commission, he said. It would focus on informed consent for medical procedures, parental rights, and healthy food, he said.

Dig deeper: Read my report on President Trump’s push for drugmakers to release their COVID-19 vaccine data.