{"id":371844,"date":"2026-08-15T00:50:07","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T00:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/371844\/"},"modified":"2026-08-15T00:50:07","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T00:50:07","slug":"florida-school-vaccine-requirements-remain-unchanged","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/371844\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida school vaccine requirements remain unchanged"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>APOPKA, Fla. \u2014 A major change to the nation\u2019s childhood vaccine recommendations is raising questions for parents as children return to school, but the new federal guidance does not automatically change Florida\u2019s vaccine requirements.<\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/presidential-actions\/2026\/08\/delivering-gold-standard-childhood-vaccine-recommendations-for-americans\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">new federal vaccine order<\/a>\u00a0reduces the number of diseases for which vaccines are recommended for all children and calls for the MMR vaccine to be split into three separate shots.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Cathy Franco, a pediatrician with the Community Health Centers, says she has followed recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics for the past 20 years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe follow their guidelines and their scheduling for vaccinations,\u201d Franco said.<\/p>\n<p>Current Florida guidelines require K-12 students to receive several vaccines, including hepatitis B, MMR and polio, with medical and religious exemptions available.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.chcfl.org\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Community Health Centers<\/a> operate 16 locations across Central Florida and provide vaccines regardless of whether patients have insurance.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe offer the same care for patients who might, who are insured, but also who are underinsured and uninsured,\u201d Franco said.<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Kelly Moore, formerly with the CDC and now CEO of Immunize.org, says the order does not significantly change how people receive vaccines.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAlthough this new executive order was alarming or upsetting to some people, it actually doesn\u2019t change anything about how people receive their vaccines around the country,\u201d Moore said.<\/p>\n<p>Any changes to Florida\u2019s requirements would have to come through the state.<\/p>\n<p>Moore says the MMR vaccine is not ready to be separated because separate measles, mumps and rubella vaccines are not currently available in the United States.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are not separate vaccines available in this country. So, we only have the MMR vaccine. But there\u2019s no reason to change that. The vaccine is very, very well studied, and we should reassure everyone that it\u2019s safe,\u201d Moore said.<\/p>\n<p>Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo has previously been outspoken about changing the state\u2019s vaccine requirements.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Florida Department of Health, in partnership with the governor, is going to be working to end all vaccine mandates and for the long haul,\u201d Ladapo said.<\/p>\n<p>Florida\u2019s leaders have continued to push for changes to vaccine requirements, but the state\u2019s school mandate remains in place.<\/p>\n<p>Some of those requirements have been in place for nearly 50 years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou know, I think Florida is interesting because there were such there\u2019s such talk about vaccines and vaccine policy, but at the end of the day, nothing changed,\u201d Moore said.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this year, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flsenate.gov\/Session\/Bill\/2026\/626\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Senate Bill 626<\/a> was introduced that would have changed the list of diseases for which vaccines are required for school attendance.<\/p>\n<p>The bill died in the Senate in March.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"APOPKA, Fla. \u2014 A major change to the nation\u2019s childhood vaccine recommendations is raising questions for parents as&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":371845,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[137530,4996,3948,9995,6466,54547,113,28,30,29,571,6075,115,139,11881,135,835],"class_list":["post-371844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-app-back-to-school","tag-app-education","tag-app-health","tag-app-latest-education-stories","tag-app-latest-health-stories","tag-back-to-school","tag-education","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-health","tag-health-and-medicine","tag-news","tag-orlando","tag-randy-rauch","tag-tampa","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371844","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=371844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371844\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/371845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}