Florida is set to roll back four vaccine requirements for children attending the state’s public schools, according to a new rule published Monday by the state Department of Health. The proposed guidelines come after Florida’s surgeon general launched an effort last fall to eliminate all vaccine mandates for school children.
The rule would allow Florida children to attend school without receiving immunizations for chickenpox, hepatitis B, Haemophilus influenzae type B and pneumococcal disease. The Department of Health purports that the proposed rule eliminates vaccine mandates for shots that aren’t required under state law.
Florida law requires children to be vaccinated for seven diseases — polio, diphtheria, tetanus, rubeola (measles), rubella, pertussis and mumps — as well as “other communicable diseases as determined by rules of the Department of Health.” The four diseases at issue in the new proposed rule were requirements under the state’s health department, which is now trying to change its own administrative rule.
The period for public comment on the proposed regulation will be open for 21 days.
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The push to roll back vaccine requirements in Florida has gained traction under the state’s surgeon general, Joseph Ladapo, who was appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2021.
Lapado has been aligned with other vaccine skeptics and rose to prominence as a member of the group “America’s Frontline Doctors,” which was widely criticized during the COVID-19 pandemic for spreading misinformation about the virus and urging Americans against vaccination.
The group’s founder, Simone Gold, was sentenced to two months in prison for storming the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021. She was pardoned with other Jan. 6 participants by President Donald Trump.
Shortly after assuming his role as Florida’s top medical official, Ladapo reversed COVID-19 quarantine and vaccine requirements. The surgeon general also courted controversy by personally altering data in a study about COVID-19 vaccines to claim that the vaccine posed a higher risk for young men, Politico reported in 2023.
Last year Lapado expanded his efforts to oppose vaccine requirements, saying he plans to eliminate all vaccine mandates for Floridians.
“Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery,” Ladapo said about vaccine mandates at a news conference in September.
Measles cases have surged across the country, despite the availability of a vaccine that protects children from the potentially deadly disease and carries relatively little risk of adverse health effects. The Florida Department of Health has reported 155 cases so far in 2026, while just seven cases were reported last year, according to WLRN.
Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Florida), who’s running to replace DeSantis for governor in a race rated “Solid R” by the Cook Political Report, told CBS News over the weekend that he plans to “study” vaccine requirements for polio and measles and committed to working with the state Legislature before making “any of those decisions about requirements for those vaccines.”
Donalds also claimed, without evidence, that the surge in measles cases could be attributed to illegal immigration.
The new wave of vaccine policy reversals in Florida also comes weeks after Trump issued an executive order that would reshape the schedule for childhood vaccines. The president’s policy expanded on earlier efforts by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that were blocked in court.
Trump said the executive order, which made several recommendations such as splitting up certain vaccines into multiple doses, aligned the U.S. “with common sense and knowledge” — though the order was immediately met with criticism from members of the medical community.
The four immunizations at issue in Florida’s new rule were listed as “recommended for all children” in Trump’s executive order.
When asked about Florida’s plan to roll back the requirements last year, Trump told reporters that some vaccines “just pure and simple work” and that those shots “should be used, otherwise some people are going to catch it.”
“I think you have to be very careful when you say that some people don’t have to be vaccinated. It’s a very ... tough position,” Trump said in September.
Lapado has taken a different approach by arguing that bodily autonomy supersedes most public health concerns about vaccines. The state surgeon general called the measles shot “effective” but did not explicitly advocate for Floridians to receive the vaccine at an event in July.
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