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Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo announced this week that the Sunshine State will seek to end all childhood vaccine mandates, describing the decision to be immunized as one between individuals and their creator.
“The Florida Department of Health, in partnership with the governor, is going to be working to end all vaccine mandates,” he announced on Wednesday. “…Every last one of them.”
Ladapo made his announcement during a news conference with Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis in Valrico, where the governor announced that the state would be forming its own “MAHA Commission”(Make America Healthy Again), in the vein of what Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has done in the Trump administration.
“Every last one of [the mandates] is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery! Who am I, as a government, or anyone else…to tell you what YOU should put in YOUR body?” Ladapo asked.
The surgeon general continued, “Who am I to tell you what your child should put in your body? I don’t have that right. Your body is a gift from God. What you put into your body is because of your relationship with your body and your God. I don’t have that right. Government does not have that right.”
Currently, all 50 states in the Union have some laws that require students to be vaccinated to attend school, although the rules regarding exemptions vary from state to state. According to the NCSL, 29 states, including Washington, D.C., permit religious exemptions, while 14 states permit exemptions for both religious and personal reasons.
The debate over mandatory vaccinations has raged in full force since the enforcement of the COVID-19 vaccine mandates under the Biden administration, when many Americans began questioning the credibility of an uncertain medical establishment.
The new MAHA Commission in Florida will be chaired by the governor’s wife, Casey DeSantis and Lt. Governor Jay Collins. Surgeon General Ladapo will also join the commission.
