In Florida, parents are thinking about the future with fewer vaccines

The son of Cammi Norwood, Mason, “jumped with joy” at the idea of ​​starting public school next year in Palmetto, Florida.

The four -year -old child, who was diagnosed with a kidney 4 renal disease at birth, spent two healthy years without visits to the hospital and is eager to be in class with friends, said Norwood.

But the 32 -year -old mother begins to reconsider her immunocompromised son at school, after the Florida general surgeon announced last week that he would try to end the state vaccination mandates, including those of schoolchildren.

“It’s just frightening,” said Norwood. “If these children are not vaccinated … He can become very, very sick if someone came with measles.”

Medical experts and some parents fear that the move of the general surgeon threatens the health of vulnerable children as a master, preparing the way for a new era of infectious diseases, driven by lower vaccination rates.

“We will end up having flaming pockets of different types of infectious diseases,” said former Florida general surgeon, Scott Rivkees, at the BBC. “Older and immunocompromised people and children who can have cancer, for example, will be afraid to go out in public.”

If Florida continues, it would be one of the first states to officially eliminate vaccination mandates on childhood, which has long been an element of the parents’ school plans. In April, the governor of Idaho signed a law intended for the requirements of vaccines.

These measures come while the Secretary of Health, Robert F Kennedy Jr, skeptical of vaccines, undertakes an American refuge policy and the country’s public health agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), is in trouble.

When Florida general surgeon Joseph Ladapo announced the effort earlier this month, he compared the existing mandates to “slavery”, saying that parents should ultimately have a choice.

His efforts are supported by the Republican Governor Ron Desantis, while the main medical organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, are opposed to the plan.

Ladapo did not offer details and his office did not respond to a request for comments from the BBC. But the Florida Department of Health told the Associated Press in 90 days, this would increase the mandates of schools on vaccines for hepatitis B, chickenpox, HIB influenza and pneumococcal diseases.

The lifting of mandates on other vaccines would require a modification of the Florida administrative code, which should go through state legislature, medical experts told BBC.

The announcement worried Meghan Bichard, mother of two in the County of Lake, Florida. The two 39 -year -old children, aged eight and three, are already vaccinated, but she knows several parents in her city whose children are not.

“To hear that there will be the potential of some of these very preventable diseases to become a petri box here at our location is embarrassing,” she said. “Why wouldn’t we want to protect ourselves, and why would we not want to protect our neighbors?”

But Dana Fernandez, from Longwood, in Florida, was “delighted” by Ladapo’s policy.

She has moved with her New York family – which does not allow religious exemptions for vaccines – in Florida, so that her six -year -old triplets could frequent public school with derogation.

“I support the right of a parent to decide for themselves what they deem good for their child,” she said. “But I don’t support you by forcing what I should do.”

A recent KFF non -profit health survey suggests that the vast majority – around 80% – parents in Florida and the United States want vaccination requirements for public schools.

Florida has a relatively high vaccination rate, although the number of religious exemptions for gunshots has increased in recent years, said Dr. Rivkees, professor at the School of Public Health.

While exemptions have grown up, Meghan Martin, a pediatric emergency doctor at the Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in Florida, said that she had seen more epidemics of vaccine preventable diseases in recent years.

Cases of whooping or darling, for example, were rare, but are now a monthly event, she said. In 2024, the darling was disadvantaged more than 700 Floridians, compared to only 85 cases in 2023. The state also saw several cases of measles during the past year, while the United States fought against its worst epidemic of infection for decades, causing three deaths, two children in Texas.

Dr. Martin said policy could further reduce vaccination rates in the state, leading to more serious illnesses and potentially overcrowding hospitals.

In an interview with CNN, Ladapo said on Sunday that his department had not analyzed data on how the change in policy could affect epidemics of vaccine preventable diseases.

“Should I analyze if it is appropriate that parents can decide what is going on in their children’s body? I don’t need to do an analysis on this subject,” he said.

The new pressure on Florida’s policy on vaccines follows Kennedy’s continuous efforts to modify American regulations and recommendations. As an unofficial leader in the so-called “Make America Healthy Again” movement, or Maha for short, the Health Secretary was opened on his unspeakable concerns concerning a link between vaccines and autism.

Since he took the bar of the United States Ministry of Health and Social Services (HHS), Kennedy has dismissed hundreds of health officials in order to dismantle what he considers “corruption”. He ousted all members of an independent advisory committee of vaccines before replacing them with several skeptics of vaccines and reduced the recommendations for boost COVID-19.

Last week, he triggered a backlash when he pulled the head of the CDC, Susan Monarez, who declared that the reason was his refusal of the recommendations of rubber stamps of his new vaccination panel.

The changes are confusing for parents, patients and doctors who are trying to follow the vaccine guidelines, said Demeter Daskalakis, former CDC national director for immunization and respiratory diseases.

Dr. Daskalakis, who has resigned to protest against Dr. Monarez’s eviction, said that when patients are confused, their general reaction is to “do nothing” – or refrain from receiving vaccines.

“This will mean more infections, more hospitalizations, more disability and more death,” he said.

Dr. Rivkees, the former Florida general surgeon, said that Kennedy’s anti-vaccine rhetoric had opened a door in Ladapo.

“When you have someone in Washington, someone who is responsible for the health of the whole country, doing things to undermine vaccination at many different levels, this will certainly reach a resonant agreement for people who have the same people,” he said.

Kennedy’s opinions resonated with Ms. Fernandez and other members of her community who share several of her objectives “Make America Healthy Again,” she said. “I am delighted with their position,” she said about Ladapo and Kennedy.

Dr. Rana Alissa, president of the Florida section of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said that if the Secretary of Health supports scientists and experts, Florida would not try to modify its vaccine laws.

“The world is watching,” she said. “It’s dangerous … it will cost lives.”