Florida officials announced Wednesday they will seek to make the state the first in the country without school vaccine mandates, with Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo comparing the requirements to slavery.
“Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery,” Ladapo, a longtime vaccine skeptic, said after announcing Florida plans to end all vaccine mandates without exceptions.
“Who am I to tell you what your child should put in their body? I don’t have that right. Your body is a gift from God,” he added.
Ladapo said his department will repeal what mandates are under his control, and the state Legislature will have to take care of the rest.
School districts in Florida, like others across the country, require vaccinations for polio, diphtheria, measles, rubella, pertussis, mumps, tetanus and other communicable diseases.
The decision comes as vaccination rates among children are already on the decline and as the federal government has taken the COVID-19 vaccine off the recommended list for healthy children.
Florida also announced it would be creating a “Make America Healthy Again” commission led by state first lady Casey DeSantis.
“I think that this is something that has great potential,” Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said. “We’ve already done a lot. I don’t think there’s any state that has done even close to what we’ve done.”
