(The Center Square) – Pledging a Floridian version of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again, state Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo and second-term Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said Wednesday they’re done with vaccine mandates.
They’ll need the Legislature’s help.
But where able, Ladapo said the end is near.
“Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery,” he said. “Who am I to tell you what your child should put in their body?”
DeSantis was among at least 16 governors acting to prevent government reach during the COVID-19 pandemic. He didn’t impose vaccine mandates on schoolchildren nor did he back mandates for workers getting shots to keep jobs.
“I don’t think there’s another state that’s done as much as Florida,” he said. “We want to stay ahead of the curve.”
Critics of the moves were on social media quickly calling it “reckless” and “dangerous.”
Lt. Gov. Jay Collins and DeSantis’ wife Casey will lead his state-level MAHA commission. The panel is charged with enhancing parental rights on medical decisions involving their children, eliminating “medical orthodoxy that is not supported by data,” and helping Floridians eat healthy.
Ladapo’s department can make changes in some but not all vaccine requirements. The panel led by Collins and Casey DeSantis is expected to recommend legislation on others.
Ladapo said vaccine mandates are wrong.
“Who am I as a government or anyone else, who am I as a man standing here now, to tell you what you should put in your body?” Lapado said. “Who am I to tell you what your child should put in their body? I don’t have that right.”
