Legislators vote to gut vaccination requirements -- all during an outbreak of measles in Florida
A special news report from Florida Trident
“I saw the devastation first-hand … I’m afraid you will see more children die.”
— Dr. Paul Robinson
By Laura Cassels
Legislation to gut Florida’s school-vaccination requirements by green-lighting virtually all parental requests for exemption on grounds of “conscience” drew more than 100 doctors, parents and others to the Florida Capitol this week to testify for and against the measure.
The bill, SB 1756, passed 10 -7 in the Senate Appropriations Committee, with two Republicans joining the five Democrats in opposing it. (Committee member Sen. Jason Pizzo, NPA, Miami-Dade, was absent.) The bill has more stops to make in the legislative process before it could potentially become law. The legislative session ends March 13.
At the Appropriations hearing, bill sponsor Sen. Clay Yarborough, a Republican who represents Nassau County and part of Duval County, did not question the safety or efficacy of any vaccines required in Florida to attend public schools, private schools and daycare programs. Instead, he said his “medical freedom” bill is entirely about parental freedom of choice.
“[This is about] the right of Florida’s parents to make decisions they believe are best for their children,” Yarborough testified. Likewise, his bill would make the anti-parasitic prescription drug ivermectin readily available from “behind the counter” without a prescription. Ivermectin, widely used by veterinarians, gained national attention early in the pandemic as an alleged but debunked treatment for COVID-19.
Sen. Gayle Harrell, a Republican who represents Martin County and parts of Palm Beach and St. Lucie counties, strongly opposes Yarborough’s bill. She is perhaps the Senate’s senior spokeswoman on medical issues.
“I truly believe this is a dangerous bill,” she told fellow senators on the committee, stressing that right now, Florida is fighting yet another outbreak of measles, this time at Ave Maria University near Naples.
“In the last 45 days, senators, we’ve had 92 cases of measles in the state of Florida, in 45 days! This is more than we’ve ever had in that short a period of time, because we’re lacking herd immunity,” Harrell said. Such outbreaks will become more common if Florida’s tepid vaccination rates fall further below the 95 percent threshold, she said.
The hearing time expired before most of the estimated 100 witnesses who traveled to give testimony could be heard. Those who did not get to speak included Dr. Rana Alissa, a Jacksonville pediatrician and president of the Florida Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and chapter vice president Dr. Jennifer Takagishi, a pediatrician in Tampa. They have publicly denounced any weakening of childhood vaccine programs, saying that would jeopardize children and their communities.
Chapter member Paul Robinson, a Tallahassee pediatrician, was able to testify, but only for 45 seconds. He described the agony he felt as a young doctor treating certain childhood illnesses before vaccines were available.
“I saw the devastation first-hand,” Dr. Robinson said, warning that gutting the childhood vaccine regimen will bring a return to those dark days. “I’m afraid you will see more children die.”
Gabriela Southwick and her daughter Emerson told lawmakers Tuesday that Emerson has brain cancer and, like other immunocompromised children, cannot be vaccinated. They count on healthier children to take the shots to suppress infectious diseases.
Maija Hahn, a Merritt Island speech pathologist, testified in favor of broad exemptions, saying she has patients and two children she believes were injured by vaccines.
“Opponents argue that exemptions increase risks. But medical interventions themselves carry risks, something the federal government has acknowledged for decades through the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program that has paid out … $5.4 billion in claims,” Hahn said.
The National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, acknowledges in its published materials that injuries sometimes occur, mostly from allergic reactions. It describes those injuries as “very rare” and usually mild. Its assessment is based on decades of evidence and billions of vaccine doses safely given. Across 35 years, a little over 10,000 petitions for compensation worth more than $5 billion were granted through the program’s no-fault alternative to litigation between 1988 and 2023.
Addressing a different front, American Families for Vaccines commissioned an analysis of potential economic impacts lower vaccination rates and higher rates of illness and death would have.
“Florida could lose $9 billion over the next 10 years,” said the organization’s president, Northe Saunders, citing losses across many economic sectors.
The analysis was done by Regional Economic Consulting Group (REC), a private, non-partisan firm founded and led by economists who worked for decades in Florida state government. It forecasts $9 billion in lost gross domestic product over the coming decade if even more parents opt out of childhood vaccines and diseases spread. The analysis cites official state and federal data in forecasting $3 billion in new health-care costs for treating more infected children and adults, job losses and lost income from missing work to care for sick or disabled loved ones, $1.3 billion in depressed tourism, preventable deaths, and even loss of tax revenue due to premature deaths of taxpayers. The analysis projects local losses over 10 years, with Miami losing $2.5 billion; Orlando losing $1.2 billion; and Tampa losing $1.3 billion.
Julio Fuentes, president of Florida’s Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, warned against risking that kind of impact.
“Communities from Orlando to Miami to Tampa will feel that strain,” Fuentes testified.
Committee member Sen. Erin Grall, a Republican attorney who represents Glades, Highlands, Indian River, and Okeechobee counties and part of St. Lucie County, challenged the analysis, reading aloud the technical limitations its authors disclose in their report.
“This is not proven and reliable and would not be permitted into a court of law to prove the assumptions and allegations in here, but it has been paid for to influence our policy today and I think we should reject it,” Grall said.
Just after the hearing, the report’s lead author, Matthew Moore, retorted: “This study is based on the most reliable and credible federal and state data sources. We use the exact same standards and methods that the state relies on for its own economic and analytic process.”
Appropriations Committee member Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith, Orange County Democrat, said Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo is “reckless” in leading a campaign to gut vaccination requirements without having studied the impact on public health across Florida. Smith said he fears what will happen, especially in his home district.
“Nine out of the 10 largest schools in my area are below the 95 percent threshold. Those rates will continue to drop under this bill,” Smith said. “The Department of Health is pushing this bill but has done no epidemiological modeling … which is reckless.”
Currently, Florida requires children who attend public schools, private schools or day-care facilities to be vaccinated against 11 infectious diseases: polio; measles, mumps, and rubella (combined into an MMR shot); chickenpox; diphtheria, tetanus, and acellular pertussis, or whooping cough (combined into a DTaP shot); Haemophilus influenza type b (Hib); hepatitis; and pneumococcal bacteria. Exemptions are available for medical or religious reasons.
SB 1756 would add “conscience” as another cause for exemption – meaning virtually any objection would suffice. This approach avoids a public fight among lawmakers over keeping or killing Florida’s vaccination program by instead gutting its effectiveness without actually repealing it.
Surgeon general leads the charge
At a “medical freedom” rally in September, Ladapo, head of the state Department of Health, announced he wants all vaccine mandates struck down. He did not criticize the safety or effectiveness of any of the vaccines that are required, but instead equated mandates with “slavery.” Seven of the 11 vaccines are mandated in state law, established by the Legislature and governor. The other four are mandated by rules set by the Department of Health. Ladapo threatened in September to revoke those four and in December held a lively and well-attended workshop to take public testimony on doing so. But almost six months since his rally, the department still has proposed no rule changes.
With vaccine skeptics now running federal health agencies, there is greater pressure reported on states to drop vaccination requirements. Last March, soon after President Trump appointed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Idaho lawmakers adopted the “Idaho Medical Freedom Act,” considered a blueprint for prohibiting nearly all medical mandates, including school-age vaccinations. Groups behind that new law, including the Wyoming-based non-profit corporation Health Freedom Defense Fund, are urging other states to follow suit. The Health Freedom Defense Fund offers a medical-freedom template, or model legislation, for other state lawmakers to sponsor.
Nevertheless, polling consistently shows voters across the political spectrum broadly support vaccine requirements and factor that into their voting patterns, making vaccine mandates a possible issue in upcoming midterm elections.
In January, McLaughlin & Associates, a Republican-focused public-opinion and media-strategy firm, reported that 79 percent of 1,000 likely Florida voters it surveyed from both political parties support vaccine requirements for school-age children. A Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health poll of 2,509 adults last March reported similar findings.
Sen. Yarborough’s legislation is titled “Medical Freedom,” reflecting its intention to give parents freedom of choice over whether to vaccinate their children. Yarbrough drew attention in 2023 when he authored legislation now in law prohibiting children and teens from receiving sex-reassignment treatment, even when their parents consent. In 2024, he voted in support of Florida’s six-week abortion ban.
The reporter on this story, Laura Cassels, is a veteran Florida journalist and former Capitol Bureau chief who specializes in science, the environment, and the economy.
This story was reprinted with permission of Florida Trident, a publication of the Florida Center for Government Accountability. You can support the center’s work by donating here:
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Here's a radical idea: Science is real.
I am so grateful that the leadership in Florida has rightfully returned parents the right to control what goes into their children's bodies. No government should mandate injections of any kind. Yes, make things available, but no mandates.