Medical establishment seethes as Florida plans to end vaccine ‘slavery’
The medical establishment is up in arms about the State of Florida’s plan to end all vaccine mandates.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo announced on Wednesday that the administration will be “working to end all vaccine mandates,” which are primarily enforced in schools. According to a Florida statute, children must provide proof that they have received vaccines for “communicable diseases” to attend school or daycare. The Florida Department of Health currently requires vaccination for diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis (DTaP); polio; measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR); hepatitis B; and varicella (chickenpox).
“Who am I to tell you what your child should put in their body? Your body is a gift from God,” Dr. Ladapo said at a Wednesday press conference, slamming vaccine mandates as immoral. “Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery,” he added.
Ladapo acknowledged that ending the mandates depends on Florida’s legislature repealing the statute that requires school immunizations. “That’s how this becomes possible,” he said.
Establishment backlash
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), a physician considered an “ally” by the drug industry, reacted by predicting mass illness.
“We’re going to start having vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks at school,” Cassidy warned. “You’re going to have children who come to school with measles and infect other people who either have not been vaccinated or have some sort of disease, like cancer,” he added.
Idaho, which has one of the lowest measles vaccination rates in the country at 79.6%, also has one of the lowest measles infection rates, with just 3 confirmed cases so far this year. Texas, which boasts a vaccination rate of over 93%, has over 800 confirmed cases, according to the CDC.
Nonetheless, Gabrielle Perry, a far-Left epidemiologist, also suggested a doomsday scenario. “I’m absolutely speechless,” she wrote on X. “May our children and our children’s children forgive us.”
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which has come out strongly in favor of vaccine mandates, reacted to Ladapo’s announcement with similar warnings. The AAP recently called for even harsher mandates by demanding the elimination of non-medical exemptions.
“When everyone in a school is vaccinated, it is harder for diseases to spread and easier for everyone to continue learning and having fun,” Dr. Rana Alissa, chair of AAP’s Florida chapter, told the Associated Press. “When children are sick and miss school, caregivers also miss work, which not only impacts those families but also the local economy.”
AAP President Dr. Susan Kressly released a statement warning about mass sickness. “We are concerned that today’s announcement by Gov. DeSantis will put children in Florida public schools at higher risk for getting sick, and have ripple effects across their community,” she said.
The American Medical Association (AMA) warned that ending 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 AMA trustee Dr. Sandra Adamson Fryhofer.
Former CDC Director Dr. Richard Besser, who also serves as CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, said: “The idea that children would be allowed to go to school unvaccinated is absolutely frightening.”
