Medical associations are warning of risks and deaths from Florida’s intention to become the first U.S. state to eliminate vaccine mandates, adding to the “chaos” at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC) under the leadership of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The largest U.S. medical groups condemned the rule change in Florida, where state Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo said Wednesday that the state’s governor, Republican Ron DeSantis, “will work to end all vaccination mandates under Florida law” and likened them to slavery.
The measure, which has yet to be endorsed by the Florida Congress, “would place children and communities at increased risk for diseases such as measles, mumps, polio, and chickenpox,” said Sandra Adamson Fryhofer, counsel for the American Medical Association (AMA) in a statement.
This “would result in serious illness, disability and even death,” the doctor warned.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) also expressed “concern” about the announcement in Florida, where already 5.1% of preschool students have an exemption to vaccine mandates, up from 3.6% nationally, according to CDC data.
The association detailed that this comes as the country’s measles outbreak expands, with 1,431 cases nationwide this year, the highest number since 1992, including three deaths, two of them children.
“The announcement will put Florida’s public school children at greater risk of getting sick, and it will have a ripple effect throughout their community,” the AAP felt.
The agency cited a CDC study that in 2024 found that vaccines prevented 508 million lifetime illnesses, 32 million hospitalizations, and 1.1 million deaths among children born in 1994-2023.
For now, the Executive in Florida can remove the mandates for varicella, pneumococcal conjugate, hepatitis B and Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib), which causes diseases such as meningitis and pneumonia.
But the local Congress must reform the law to end the remaining immunization mandates against diseases such as diphtheria, tetanus, polio, measles, rubella, among others.
Public health turmoil
The Florida controversy sharpens the controversy of Secretary Kennedy Jr., who on Thursday appeared in the Senate, where a protester accused him of “killing millions of people” and more and more Democrats are demanding his resignation, to explain the chaos at the CDC, where last week he fired its director Susan Monarez.
“Change has its enemies, which is why we need new blood at CDC, and why it is imperative that we remove officials with conflicts of interest and catastrophically bad judgment,” said the official, who has questioned vaccines throughout his career.
Monarez wrote Thursday in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal that in a meeting with the secretary on Aug. 25 he “pressured” her, which is “one of the most public aspects of a deliberate effort to weaken the U.S. public health system and vaccine protections.”
This follows a public letter from more than 1,000 Department of Health employees and former employees who this week demanded Kennedy Jr.’s resignation “for compromising the nation’s health.”
Against this backdrop, California, Oregon and Washington, governed by Democrats, announced Wednesday a health alliance that will coordinate vaccination recommendations for the three West Coast states, in response to changes the White House is pushing for at the CDC, which is responsible for vaccination guidelines, EFE reported.
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