Republicans advanced a bill in the Florida legislature this week to weaken vaccine protections for children, but it fell well short of state surgeon general Joseph Ladapo’s promise made last year to end immunization mandates.
The proposed new law, introduced by Jacksonville state senator Clay Yarborough, and which narrowly passed the chamber’s health policy committee on Monday in a 6-4 vote, seeks only to expand exemptions for parents who do not want their school-age children vaccinated.
It keeps mandates in place for shots for measles, mumps and rubella, frequently combined into a single MMR vaccine; diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (DTaP); and polio.
In September, Ladapo, a longtime vaccine skeptic appointed by Florida’s hard-right governor, Ron DeSantis, caused outrage among public health experts when he declared children in the state would no longer be required to receive vaccines against a number of preventable diseases.
He said he expected his push to eliminate compulsory vaccinations would receive the blessing “of God”, and that “every last [mandate] is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery”.
Florida’s lawmakers, he said, “are going to have to choose a side”.
Yarborough’s bill would appear to indicate that Republicans have chosen, and their decision is not to support the surgeon general’s sweeping anti-vaccine agenda, which was already showing signs of stress soon after he announced it.
“The main thrust of this bill is that parents be in charge of the decisions of their children’s health care,” Yarborough said at Monday’s hearing, reported by the Sun-Sentinel.
“Parents need to be in the drivers’ seat for every aspect of their children’s education, their health care, their wellbeing, anything related thereto.”
If passed into law, the so-called “medical freedom” bill will add parents’ “conscience” as a reason for them to back out of vaccinations for their children to the existing exemption for religious reasons. It will require medical providers to advise parents and caregivers of the “risks, benefits, safety and efficacy of each vaccine being administered” using materials provided by state-run medical boards.
Some Republicans joined Democrats in criticizing the bill, noting that an easier opt-out weakens any benefit of mandates remaining in place.
“We are about to go down a road that’s going to create a major problem for children, but also for seniors and those who cannot be vaccinated,” Gayle Harrell, state senator for the city of Stuart, said, according to the Sun-Sentinel.
“I had a conversation with my primary-care doctor I’ve had [as] a good friend for many years, and she said, ‘Gayle, I don’t want to go back to medical school to learn how to treat polio.’ And that’s where we are going.”
Harrell, the committee’s vice-chair, joined Alexis Calatayud as the two Republicans who voted against advancing the bill.
Separately, Florida’s health department is moving towards eliminating requirements for some vaccines that are not mandated by law. In December, it discussed dropping chickenpox, hepatitis B, Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) and pneumococcal conjugate vaccines, the Tampa Bay Times reported. The department has not yet published a proposed rule.
Florida’s anti-vaccine drive has parallels in health secretary Robert F Kennedy’s federal-level rejection of immunizations and pursuit of what many see as a science-free health agenda.
Dr Scott Rivkees, Ladapo’s predecessor as Florida surgeon general, told the Guardian last year that the state was pursuing a flawed policy that was overwhelmingly rejected by the public and dangerous to children’s health.
Three cases of measles have been reported in Florida already this year.
“The public is overwhelmingly supportive of children being vaccinated. They don’t want their kids to get sick,” Rivkees said.
“[But] so much distrust has been put in place that makes those of us in medicine less effective than we would have been even just six months ago.”
