TALLAHASSEE – Another clash over vaccine mandates in Florida is coming Thursday, when state health officials will hear from the public about striking four school-age vaccine mandates, including the chickenpox vaccine.
More than 3 million students in public and private schools and preschools are in the crossfire between medical professionals, vaccine skeptics, and parents from both sides.
The plan to strike the mandates is backed by Gov. Ron DeSantis and proposed by his appointed surgeon general, Dr. Joseph Ladapo.
Following the public hearing, the Department of Health could adopt its administrative rule change to strike the four vaccine mandates, but the rule might not take immediate effect. Months of legal challenges are likely to follow: in the Florida Department of Administrative Hearings (called DOAH) and possibly in an appellate court.
“The state should anticipate a DOAH hearing,” said Jacksonville-based health-care attorney and lobbyist Chris Nuland, who spoke Monday with the Florida Trident. “I am hearing there will be significant opposition to the proposed rule.” Nuland represents the Florida Chapter of the American College of Physicians, which is, along with the Florida Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, leading the defense of vaccines and vaccine mandates.
The physicians group already alluded to the challenge in its letter to the Department of Health (DOH) opposing the rule change and petitioning for a public hearing.
“Numerous scientifically vetted studies have demonstrated the safety and efficacy of these immunizations, while the Chapter is unaware of any substantial competent evidence that would indicate otherwise,” Nuland wrote to the DOH on behalf of the physicians.
“You’ll be hearing a lot about substantial, competent evidence,” Nuland told the Trident. He believes such evidence will be the legal standard of most concern to an administrative hearing judge.
Florida, with 148 measles cases so far this year, is currently among the top eight states for that highly contagious, airborne virus, according to measles tracking at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Pennsylvania, with the most cases, has reported nearly 1,000 of them. Nationwide, more than half involve children ages newborn to 17. Nearly all the infections (97 percent) are among unvaccinated people. Thirty-six states have reported no cases.
Vaccines, school vaccines, CDC, COVID
Vaccine skepticism and anti-government sentiment have surged since the lockdowns and restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Surgeon General Ladapo is in that camp, having equated vaccine mandates with “slavery” and calling mRNA vaccines “poison.” U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., also is a vaccine skeptic and has directed the loosening of vaccination requirements nationwide.
Thursday’s hearing will be held at the Orlando Marriott Lake Mary, 1501 International Parkway, in Lake Mary, just north of Orlando, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. It will be broadcast live on The Florida Channel.
While such hearings often generate fiery testimony, the big showdown is coming Nov. 3, when Florida voters will choose a new governor and other lawmakers, who could continue chipping away at vaccines or reverse course.
Voters may have the last word
“I am sure this will be a campaign issue in the closing days,” Nuland predicted. He added that legal challenges against striking the four vaccine mandates likely will outlast the campaign season, leaving the mandates intact at least until DOAH issues a ruling.
Come January, after the Nov. 3 midterm elections and before the 2027 Legislature convenes, the term-limited DeSantis will no longer be Florida’s governor.
If Republican nominee Byron Donalds wins the governor’s race, he is open to keeping Ladapo on as surgeon general, he has told reporters, but he has not publicly committed to that, nor to keeping or scrapping vaccine mandates.
If Democratic nominee David Jolly wins, Ladapo will be fired immediately, Jolly has announced, thus eliminating another leading driver of the attempted vaccine rollback.
Even the composition of the Legislature will change. The number of Republicans, Democrats and no-party lawmakers who would fight or defend vaccine mandates will shift. That matters because seven of Florida’s 11 vaccine mandates are enshrined in Florida law and may come under scrutiny again in the upcoming session.
A Republican bill to gut the mandates was defeated in the 2026 legislative session, with opposition from both parties.
Polls indicate voters strongly support widely immunizing school-age children. Those include a September 2025 poll by the James Madison Institute, a June 2025 poll by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and an August 2026 survey about vaccines and autism by the Annenberg Public Policy Center.
The American Cancer Society’s Cancer Action Network joined the fight in September, adding its survey of patients and survivors that shows 86 percent support school-entry vaccine mandates. Florida has the fifth-highest incidence of cancer in the nation, according to the Cancer Society.
Whether that translates into votes remains to be seen.
Medical freedom vs. community immunity
Immediately at stake are four conventional vaccines long given to school-age children and preschoolers. DeSantis and Ladapo want to remove those vaccines – and ideally, all vaccines – from state mandates. They have not said vaccines are unsafe or ineffective (other than mRNA-based vaccines disliked by Ladapo) but both say they oppose any medical measure being mandatory.
So far, no efforts to roll back school-age vaccine mandates have worked.
Unlike Ladapo’s previous plan launched in September 2025 to strike the four vaccines, this proposed rollback will not offer a broad exemption to let parents opt out by claiming to object based on conscience. Florida already allows religious and medical exemptions, which are used more frequently than in most states, according to the Johns Hopkins tracker.
The four vaccines, prescribed in administrative rules but not in Florida law, immunize against: chickenpox (varicella), hepatitis B, haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib), and pneumococcal bacteria. The Florida chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics considers all of those illnesses to be dangerous to children and highly communicable to their communities.
“The vaccines against hepatitis B, varicella (chickenpox), haemophilus influenzae b (Hib), and pneumococcal disease are paramount for the protection of Florida’s children, immunocompromised persons, and the elderly from infections of the brain, lungs, eyes, and hearts,” the pediatricians group wrote on behalf of its 2,900 Florida members.
Possibly hinting at a legal action, the group cited the state’s legal obligation to promote public health.
“Policymakers in Florida and the Department of Health have a duty to safeguard the public against the threat of communicable diseases and to resist pressures from a vocal minority seeking these dangerous changes to our current rules,” it wrote via its executive director, Alicia Adams, an attorney.
“Duty to safeguard” could protect special populations who cannot be immunized and are most vulnerable to being sickened.
“Many individuals in Florida, especially cancer patients, have weakened immune systems that make them more vulnerable to communicable illnesses … particularly those with blood cancers or undergoing treatments like chemotherapy, long-term steroids, certain immunotherapies or stem cell and bone marrow transplants. This is why high community-level vaccination rates are critical,” said Susan Harbin, Florida senior director of government relations for Cancer Action Network, in announcing her group’s involvement.
Aly Legge, a Tampa conservative activist with Moms For America, wrote to the Florida Trident on Tuesday that vaccine mandates constitute coercion, that vaccine manufacturers cannot necessarily be trusted, and that caring for one’s health is an individual responsibility.
“This is a violation of someone’s bodily autonomy,” said Legge, who also testified against vaccine mandates at a public hearing in December. “Just because a product is labeled safe and effective and recommended by physicians does not mean everyone should be forced to participate.”
“Everyone should be responsible for how they care for themselves,” Legge continued. “If you are sick, stay home and take care of yourself the way you see fit because it is YOUR health. If you have an illness that needs extensive care, that is between you and your doctor, not you and the entire population.”
Legge argues that vaccine manufacturers are unduly shielded from liability under the Reagan-era 1986 Immunization Act, making their product safety questionable.
The U.S. Health Resources & Services Administration says the Act does grant manufacturers broad protection from liability under strict conditions, though not from claims of negligence and fraud. It also created the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Fund, to compensate for alleged vaccine injuries without going to court. A plaintiff unsatisfied by that process can still file a civil lawsuit.
Vaccine mandates in state law
Seven other vaccines are mandated in state law and are not subject to any administrative rule changes. They vaccinate against: measles, mumps, and rubella (traditionally combined into an MMR shot); diphtheria, tetanus, and acellular pertussis (combined into a DTaP shot); and polio. Pertussis is whooping cough.
In the 2026 legislative session, Sen. Clay Scarborough, R-Jacksonville, sponsored a DeSantis-Ladapo plan to gut all 11 vaccine mandates by offering an essentially wide-open exemption based on parents’ “conscience.” Opposition to the plan was bipartisan; the GOP-led Senate passed Scarborough’s bill over minority opposition from both Democrats and Republicans, and the GOP-led House of Representatives refused to address it at all. Scarborough’s bill also would have expanded access to ivermectin, a drug approved for humans only for treating parasites such as intestinal worms and scabies. It was popularized in some circles during the pandemic as an unproven, at-home treatment for COVID.
Scarborough did not respond when asked if he would introduce similar legislation in 2027.
Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith, D-Orlando, did respond, saying he will bring back his 2026 bill to enshrine all vaccine mandates in Florida law, out of reach of administrative rule changes. Noting DeSantis has just months left in office, Smith called his administration’s interference with medically recommended vaccines “reckless.”
“The vast majority of Floridians oppose this move alongside pediatricians, public health experts, and parents,” Smith told the Trident. “Next session, I will re-introduce legislation reinstating these critical school immunization requirements and enshrining them in Florida law. But unless Florida elects a Democratic governor, the bill’s chances of passing are not great.”
The Florida Department of Health’s communications team did not respond to multiple requests for comment about the proposed vaccine rollback, the timeline for implementing the proposed changes, and the nature and volume of comments and letters submitted ahead of Thursday’s public hearing.
Laura Cassels is a veteran Florida journalist and former Capitol Bureau chief who specializes in science, the environment, and the economy.
