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Closeup of vaccine bottle with syringe and needle for immunization on vintage medical background (Adobe Stock)<\/p>\nCloseup of vaccine bottle with syringe and needle for immunization on vintage medical background (Adobe Stock)<\/p>\n
Some parents, teachers and medical experts in Leon County are extremely concerned about Florida\u2019s vaccine lift for schoolchildren.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Florida\u2019s decision to eliminate vaccine mandates comes after Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo, joined by Gov. Ron DeSantis, announced in September the state would move to eliminate all vaccine mandates for school children. Ladapo called the existing rules \u201cimmoral\u201d and equated them to \u201cslavery.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n
Shakita Bailey, a concerned parent in Tallahassee, is one of many uneasy about the implications of the change. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t agree with the mandate removal,\u201d she said. \u201cVaccines have done a lot with eradicating things that can be potentially very dangerous \u2026 If you\u2019re going to let your kid go to school unvaccinated, now that puts my kid at risk.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bailey\u2019s concerns are rooted in a reality many families share, and day-to-day distractions can prevent parents from staying informed on policy shifts.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly, I don\u2019t even know if everybody\u2019s even aware of it,\u201d she said. \u201cSometimes you rely on the school a little too much to protect your child.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
From a medical standpoint, the decision could have even bigger consequences.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dr. Ricardo Bailey, a family physician with Bailey Family Health in Tallahassee, warned that the removal of mandates could set a dangerous precedent. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was an active step to decline vaccines before, now, the default is not to get them,\u201d he said. \u201cWe won\u2019t see the effects right now, but as more unvaccinated kids move through the school system, we could see diseases we haven\u2019t seen in decades, like measles, make a comeback.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The risk of outbreaks is not just hypothetical.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Rashad Martin, a healthcare management student at Florida A&M University and pharmacy worker, recalled a March 2024 outbreak of over 400 measles cases in Texas and New Mexico related to low vaccination rates.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cKids are germy,\u201d he said. \u201cThey don\u2019t know boundaries. It could be scary in classrooms, especially for students with weaker immune systems.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Educators in Leon County are also voicing concerns.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Martin mentioned a professor with a child in the district who fears a rise in preventable diseases in schools.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cShe studies the data and the numbers don\u2019t lie,\u201d Martin said\u00a0<\/p>\n
Martin suggests communities push back against the mandate with facts.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cShow the real numbers,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople respond better to raw data than opinions.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Closeup of vaccine bottle with syringe and needle for immunization on vintage medical background (Adobe Stock) Some parents,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13355,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[232,234,233],"class_list":["post-13354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}