Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo stated in a press conference on Sept. 3 that he and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis are working to eliminate all vaccine mandates in Florida.Â
As Ladapo announced the termination of vaccine mandates, the crowd erupted in roaring cheers, and he looked triumphantly over his standing ovation. He claimed that each mandate is “wrong and drips with disdain and slavery,” following up with “who am I as a government, or who am I as a man standing here now to tell you what you should put in your body?” A statement that sounds very similar to “my body, my choice,” a phrase used by the pro-choice movement to combat anti-abortion rhetoric.
The surgeon general stuttered as he stated, “Your body, your body is a gift from God,” careful not to utter the phrase that conservatives have long patronized. He proceeds to repeatedly tell the crowd that the government has no right to tell you what to put into your body and to make the informed decisions on how you wish to utilize this choice.Â
Ladapo acknowledges the counter-argument to the end of the mandate by stating, “There are people who can’t take a particular vaccine or for whatever reason they’re immunocompromised and therefore everyone else has to do something.” He follows up by talking about his children and empathizing with the parental nature to care about your child’s health. However, this is not enough to protect your child and others from the spread of disease in Ladapo’s eyes because “there is no ethical basis for that to be used as a reason, a force, to take away your ability to choose what you put in your body and what you as a parent put in your child’s body.”Â
In a much less elegant manner, Ladapo claimed that many individuals regretted putting “poison in their bodies with these mRNA COVID-19 vaccines and wish they could turn back the hands of time.” Ladapo continues to compare mandatory vaccines with enslaving people and taking away their freedoms, ending his speech by sharing that the Florida Department of Health will be reviewing the predetermined rules of what vaccines are mandated and eliminating the requirement.Â
“I think we have to be very careful. You have some vaccines that are so amazing.”
President Donald Trump, in response to the Florida Surgeoun General.
In recent years, there has been a trend among conservative households, with right-leaning influencers sharing their anti-vaxx agendas that have been perpetuated by Republican lawmakers. In a poll conducted by KFF, published in January 2025, researchers found that 26% of Republican parents of children under 18 have reported skipping or delaying shots. In comparison, 17% of Democratic parents have reported the same. According to the poll, “Two-thirds (66%) of Republican and Republican-leaning parents favor schools requiring vaccines, while a third (34%) say that schools should not require any vaccines.”Â
Under Robert F. Kennedy’s term as the Health and Human Services Secretary, he has made drastic changes to the CDC and FDA under his Make America Healthy Again movement. On Sept. 9, the HHS released the MAHA report, a 73-page assessment that outlines Kennedy’s plan to “make children healthy again.” Within this report, Kennedy expresses how he believes children are being “overmedicalized” due to the overuse of vaccines. The secretary has been notorious for his claims that vaccines cause autism, an easily debunked fact that has caused public outcry. Despite a growing anti-vaccine trend coming out of right-leaning influencers and lawmakers, President Donald Trump responded to the Florida Surgeon General’s speech with, “I think we have to be very careful. You have some vaccines that are so amazing.”
For K-12 children, this could be detrimental to their learning environment, causing severe illnesses to emerge more frequently than in years past. Vaccines have always been a critical part of the health care system, saving thousands of lives every year. Without this mandate, there may be a rise in formerly extinct diseases.