Heated debate over Florida plan to lift some school vaccine requirements was on full display Friday when state officials held a meeting for the public to weigh in on the proposed changes.
The current plan, according to Florida Department of Health officials, is to waive vaccination requirements for children against hepatitis B, chickenpox and Haemophilus influenzae type B (Hib) to attend private or public schools in the state, including preschools. Neither these vaccines nor the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine will be required for kindergarten entry. The timing of when the changes will be implemented has not yet been determined.
The meeting, held in a small conference room in Panama City Beach, Florida, highlighted the ever-widening gulf between pediatricians and vaccine opponents, some of whom used their moments at the microphone to air outlandish conspiracy theories and misinformation.
Two participants incorrectly assumed that this year measles outbreaks didn't happen. (USA recorded more measles cases this year than any other country since it eliminated the disease in 2000.) Another made inaccurate claims about mRNA vaccines, although none of the shots in Florida's plan use that technology. And one participant said giving children more than one vaccine within a 30-day period “amounts to attempted murder.” (Children often receive multiple vaccines at the same time to minimize doctor visits and because recommended schedules overlap. Available evidence does not suggest that this practice is more harmful than distributing them.)
The event provided a glimpse into the deep-rooted nature of anti-vaccination beliefs, especially when it comes to school mandates. More US adults support eliminating vaccine requirements in public schools: Study October poll Axios and Ipsos put the share at 26%, up from 19% in March.
Although Florida is the only U.S. state trying to end mandatory vaccinations for schoolchildren, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has made scrutinizing vaccines and sowing doubt about their safety a key part of his agenda as the nation's top health official. Kennedy suggested that children are getting too many vaccinations, that many routine vaccines have not been properly tested for safety and this there is not enough evidence to say they do not cause autism — a position that has been thoroughly and repeatedly refuted by vigorous medical research.
North Saunders, president of the pro-vaccination group American Families for Vaccines, said Kennedy has encouraged vaccine skeptics at the state level.
“The Secretary of State is taking an aggressive stance and is certainly getting the message across to his anti-vaccination supporters,” Saunders said. “We definitely see that in the comments we heard today.”
Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo emerged during the Covid pandemic as eminent skeptic coronavirus vaccines. In September he equated school vaccination requirements to slavery and promised that his health department would work to eliminate them. (State law already allows parents to request religious and medical exemptions from school vaccination requirements.)
However, the Florida Department of Health only has the authority to waive mandates for hepatitis B, varicella, pneumococcal and Hib vaccines. School requirements for vaccines that protect against polio, diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, measles, mumps and rubella should be eliminated by legislation, and no legislation has been proposed to eliminate them.
At a two-hour meeting Friday, doctors pleaded with the Florida Department of Health not to lift the four-vaccination mandate.
“I'm very sad to hear about the mistrust of doctors in the medical community. We only care about the well-being of our patients,” said Dr. Frederick Southwick, an infectious disease specialist.
Several doctors recalled heartbreaking experiences treating children for vaccine-preventable diseases, including Hib and meningitis (inflammation of the brain and spinal cord that the pneumococcal vaccine protects against).
“When I trained at Vanderbilt, our wards were filled with children suffering from diseases that we now prevent,” said Dr. Paul Robinson, a pediatrician. “I can still imagine the two-year-old girl I treated with Hib who was left partially paralyzed.”
Jamie Schanbaum, who said a case of meningitis she contracted in college resulted in multiple amputations, emphasized that the disease is preventable through vaccination.
“No one should have to go through this experience. Sorry, I'm trying to review my notes without my fingers,” she said.
The Florida Department of Health is still accepting written comments on the proposed changes; A final decision is unlikely to be made until next year. When asked about when the mandates might be lifted, the department said it “intends to move forward with the process of changing the rules” under state law.
