Florida plans to become the first US state to eliminate vaccine mandates for school children.

Dr Joseph Ladapo, the state’s surgeon general, said the current requirements in schools and elsewhere were “immoral” intrusions on people’s rights.

“Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery,” he said. “Who am I as a government – or as anyone else –as a man standing here now to tell you what you should put in your body?”

Vaccines are considered a cornerstone of public health policy for keeping school children and adults safe from infectious diseases.

In Florida, vaccine mandates for child day care facilities and public schools include shots for measles, chickenpox, hepatitis B, diphtheria-tetanus-acellular pertussis, polio and other diseases, according to the state department’s website.

The measles vaccination, which is commonly offered at school as two MMR shots, has saved 94 million lives globally since 1974. Of those, 92 million were children.

Dr Ladapo did not give a timeline for the changes, nor did he specify any particular vaccines. However, he repeated several times that the effort would end “all of them. Every last one of them”.

‘Make America Healthy Again’

The issue has become increasingly heated this year in a string of “Make America Healthy Again” actions by Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US health secretary. He is moving the country away from vaccine mandates and towards, he says, preventing chronic diseases.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is in turmoil after Mr Kennedy’s cuts. He also removed a vocal critic of his anti-vaccine policies, Paul Offit, from the FDA vaccine advisory board on Tuesday.

Dr Ladapo, best known for his promotion of Covid-19 misinformation, frequently finds himself at odds with the medical and political establishment.

Florida’s move is in stark contrast to Oregon and California, where the Democratic governors announced on Wednesday that they had created an alliance to safeguard health policies, arguing that the administration was politicising public health decisions.

The decision was called “reckless and dangerous” by Democratic representative Anna Eskamani, who is running for Orlando mayor. It could cause outbreaks of disease, she added.

Dr Rana Alissa, Florida’s chairman of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said removing vaccines puts students and school staff at greater risk.

“When everyone in a school is vaccinated, it is harder for diseases to spread and easier for everyone to continue learning and having fun,” Dr Alissa said. “When children are sick and miss school, caregivers also miss work, which not only impacts those families but also the local economy.”

Under Republican leadership, during the pandemic Florida did not require schoolchildren to get vaccinated against Covid-19.

Vaccines have saved at least 154 million lives globally over the past 50 years, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported in 2024. The majority of those were infants and children.

“Vaccines are among the most powerful inventions in history, making once-feared diseases preventable,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the WHO.