{"id":82727,"date":"2025-12-14T03:33:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-14T03:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/82727\/"},"modified":"2025-12-14T03:33:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-14T03:33:08","slug":"florida-school-vaccine-tussle-kicks-off-in-panama-city-beach-tallahassee-reports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/82727\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida School Vaccine Tussle Kicks Off in Panama City Beach \u2013 Tallahassee Reports"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Christine Sexton, Florida Phoenix<\/a><\/p>\n

The push by Gov. Ron DeSantis and state Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo to repeal some of the state\u2019s vaccine requirements for public schools and day care kicked off Friday with a lengthy and contentious hearing held in a hotel in Florida\u2019s Panhandle.<\/p>\n

Ladapo made the call to get rid of all vaccine mandates contained in both state rule and state law even though many of those mandates have been considered a public health success.<\/p>\n

About 90 people attended the Department of Health three-hour public meeting on the proposed changes to\u00a0Rule\u00a064D-3.046<\/a>, specifically\u00a0removing the requirements for children to receive the hepatitis B, varicella (chicken pox), and haemophilus influenza B or Hib vaccine. The proposal would remove those vaccines, along with the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, for admission to a licensed day care facility.<\/p>\n

Emma Spencer, DOH division director for public health statistics and performance management, and facilitator of the meeting, described the workshop as an opportunity for \u201cpublic input\u201d as \u201cpart of an ongoing efforts to ensure the health and safety of Florida students and communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

And there was lots of input, ranging from medical professionals to parental rights advocates to those who questioned whether a measles outbreak is underway in South Carolina. More than 280 people\u00a0are in quarantine<\/a>\u00a0there for measles after a significant influx in cases following the Thanksgiving holiday, Phoenix affiliate South Carolina Daily Gazette reports.<\/p>\n

Susan Sweeten,\u00a0chief marketing officer for the\u00a0National Vaccine Information Center<\/a>\u00a0and a Florida resident, was first to testify. The center\u2019s\u00a0website says the group is \u201cdedicated to preventing vaccine injuries and deaths through public education and advocating for informed consent protections in medical policies and public health laws.\u201c<\/p>\n

Sweeten\u00a0said her son, just five hours old, was injured when he was given a hepatitis B vaccine in the hospital.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I questioned it, she said, \u2018If you don\u2019t give your baby the vaccine, your pediatrician won\u2019t see him, and you won\u2019t know if he\u2019s deaf, dumb, or blind,\u2019\u201d Sweeten told the DOH panel. \u201cThis is not informed consent. That is coercion. Vaccines should never be tied to a child\u2019s education. Nothing that pierces the skin should ever be used as leverage over a child\u2019s opportunity to education and to learn,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Doctors who showed up insisted vaccines work and that elimination of the mandates would lead to a resurgence of controllable childhood diseases.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a pediatric infectious disease physician, I cared for children before the varicella vaccine and saw \u2018simple chickenpox\u2019 turn into pneumonia, encephalitis, and needless hospitalizations \u2014 outcomes we can now prevent because of vaccines,\u201d said Dr. Nectar Aintablian, a pediatric infectious disease specialist in Tallahassee.\u00a0\u201cVaccines are victims of their own success; because they work, we forget the suffering they avert.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rick Frye, another Florida resident, said he\u2019s been beseeching people not to vaccinate their children for about the past 20 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, any pediatrician in this room who tells you that a kid needs 80 shots shouldn\u2019t be trusted to put a band aid on a kid\u2019s knee,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s obviously about freedom, but it\u2019s also about the children these pediatricians damage because they get paid to to vaccinate these kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

More hearings coming<\/p>\n

The meeting was the first one held on the proposed changes, but likely won\u2019t be the last given the administrative rulemaking process and the requirements for public input.<\/p>\n

The department did not say when the next meeting will occur, only that it would be announced in advance in the\u00a0Florida Administrative Register<\/a>.<\/p>\n

DOH staff asked that public comment on the proposed rule changes be sent to the DOH at\u00a0vaccinerule@flhealth.gov<\/a>\u00a0by Dec. 22, although Spencer acknowledged comments would remain open as the state works on the proposed changes.<\/p>\n

The League of Women Voters of Florida didn\u2019t focus on the science behind the vaccines, adverse reactions to vaccines, or parental rights. LWV representativeMary Winn focused her testimony instead on how the proposed changes conflict with the DOH\u2019s statutory mission.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis rule could probably be updated to reflect current practice and the responsibilities of the state, the Department of Health, private-practicing medical professionals, parents, and the public at large. But any changes must be consistent with the public health mission of the Department of Health as stated in Florida law,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Winn noted that statutes require the DOH to\u00a0conduct\u00a0a communicable disease prevention and control program, which includes school immunization programs. The agency is charged by statute to ensure that \u201call children in this state\u201d are immunized against vaccine-preventable diseases, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cEliminating the mandatory requirement will result in lower levels of immunization, which is contrary to that law stating that you are responsible for all of the children to be vaccinated in the state,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u2018Tremendous damage\u2019<\/p>\n

Dr. Frederick Southwick testified that he has been an infectious disease specialist for 45 years. Although he worked with adult populations for much of his career, Southwick recalled helping cover pediatric infectious diseases in 1983 and 1984, before introduction of the Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) bacteria,\u00a0which would be eliminated under the DOH proposal.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat did I see?\u201d he asked.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Before the Hib vaccine, \u201cI saw cases of orbital cellulitis, infections that went from the sinus causing bulging-eye blindness. I saw severe cases of pneumonia. I saw severe cases of otitis media. I saw bone infections, osteomyelitis that damaged the growth plate of the children so their bones could no longer grow. I saw sepsis, where patients got hypotension and died,\u201d Southwick said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the most feared was bacterial meningitis, and that had carried a 20% mortality. And this was the leading cause of deafness before the HiB vaccine. In 1985, the Hib vaccine came in, we went from 20,000 hospitalizations to 30, and today we don\u2019t see any of those diseases. You are ending that vaccine. It\u2019s going to cause tremendous damage.\u201d<\/p>\n

The proposed rule would change the existing religious exemption people can claim to refuse vaccines, removing language prohibiting exemptions based on personal or philosophical reasons.<\/p>\n

Additionally, the proposed rule would\u00a0allow parents, guardians, and college and university applicants aged 18-23 to decline to participate in documenting their vaccination status in the Florida SHOTS program, which is how the state collects vaccination data.<\/p>\n

DeSantis and Ladapo\u00a0made national headlines\u00a0in September when they announced they\u2019d like to eliminate all vaccine mandates from Florida statutes and rules, a move that could affect schoolchildren but also college students and even nursing home residents.<\/p>\n

Ladapo said at the time that mandates drip \u201cwith disdain and slavery.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The proposed rule only removes the vaccines the DOH has authorized through its rules. The proposal cannot eliminate the school vaccines mandated by statute.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Legisalture\u2019s reaction<\/p>\n

To date there\u2019s been no legislation filed on behalf of the DeSantis administration to eliminate vaccine mandates from Florida statutes. Even\u00a0Republican U.S. Sen. Rick Scott\u00a0distanced himself from the idea<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Senate President Ben Albritton told reporters this week that he\u2019s a believer in what he called \u201cthe vaccines of old,\u201d but that he has never gotten an mRNA vaccine \u2014 used during the COVID-19 epidemic \u2014 because \u201che doesn\u2019t trust the technology.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he and his wife support parental rights.<\/p>\n

\u201cMissy and I believe we\u2019re going to separate the mRNA stuff from the traditional stuff. And let\u2019s be thoughtful about what works and what we know.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith, a Democrat from Orlando, is pushing a proposal (SB 626<\/a>) to amend statutes to require the vaccines (hepatitis B, chickenpox, haemophilus influenzae type b, and pneumococcal disease) Ladapo is trying to eliminate via rule.<\/p>\n

SB 626\u00a0<\/a>has been referred to the Senate Health Policy, Education Pre-K \u2013 12, and Rules committees.<\/p>\n

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