PANAMA CITY BEACH, Fla. — Florida health officials on Friday launched the first concrete step toward rolling back long-standing vaccine requirements for schools and childcare, holding a packed and often emotional public workshop on a draft rule that would eliminate several shots currently required for admission.
The proposal, unveiled during a more than two hour meeting at a beachfront hotel, would remove Hepatitis B, chickenpox, Hib and — for daycare settings— pneumococcal vaccines from Florida’s K–12 and childcare immunization standards. If ultimately approved, families could send children to school without vaccinations that have been mandated for decades.
WATCH: Parents, doctors clash as Florida moves to ease long-standing vaccine rules
Governor Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) and Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo have framed the effort as an expansion of parental choice. Ladapo first previewed his plans in September, declaring vaccine mandates “wrong…and dripp[ing] with disdain and slavery.” But until Friday, no draft text or public hearing had been released.
Inside the workshop, the proposal drew strong reactions on all sides. Parents and vaccine-choice advocates praised the changes as overdue.
“I feel very sad to hear the distrust of physicians in the medical community,” said one speaker, Dr. Fred Southwick, an infectious disease specialist. “We only have our patient’s welfare in mind.”
Another attendee told officials: “As a child, I was injured by a childhood vaccine…I am now currently deaf.” A third declared, “The default setting should be freedom. Not these corporate chemical vaccine injections.”
Pediatricians, educators and public health leaders warned the move could reverse decades of disease prevention. Dr. Rana Alissa, president of the Florida Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, called the push “a dangerous tactic to just follow parental choice and ignore the risks and danger,” arguing that lower vaccination rates would have statewide and national consequences.
“We’re going to see outbreaks pop right and left,” Alissa said. “We saw how COVID came. You don’t want another COVID. You don’t want another measles to be like COVID.”
Florida health officials acknowledged they have not yet completed an economic or public health impact analysis, a step experts say is essential before advancing the rule. The department said that work is underway.
While Friday’s proposal targets vaccines set in administrative rule, seven others (including MMR and polio) are written into state law. Eliminating those would require legislative action. DeSantis has said he would support removing them, though legislative leaders have not committed.
Senate President Ben Albritton (R-Bartow) told reporters this week he and his wife support “the vaccines of old” like polio but are skeptical of newer mRNA technology.
“Seems a little weird to inject something in your body that tinkers with your DNA,” he said. (The CDC notes there is no evidence mRNA vaccines affect or interact with DNA.)
For now, the Department of Health says public comment will remain open and more workshops may be scheduled in coming weeks. Lawmakers return to Tallahassee Jan. 13, potentially setting up a fight over which vaccines, if any, Florida will continue to require in 2026 and beyond.
"It made all the hard days worth it"
In 2024, Tampa Bay 28 Anchor Lauren St. Germain brought viewers the story of a young mom here in Florida who was diagnosed with stage four metastatic breast cancer. Now, Lauren is following through and giving an update on her experimental cell vaccine therapy.
