Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo announced today that the state plans to eliminate all vaccine mandates, including for children to attend school. Every immunization mandate “is wrong and drips with disdain,” he said. Florida would be the first state to drop all of its vaccine requirements.
By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. on Children’s Health Defense on September 3, 2025
Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo announced today plans to eliminate all vaccine mandates in the state, including for children to attend school.
“The Florida Department of Health, in partnership with the governor, is going to be working to end all vaccine mandates in Florida,” Ladapo said at a press conference in Tampa, hosted by Gov. Ron DeSantis. Florida would be the first state to completely drop all mandated vaccinations.
Ladapo said every immunization requirement “is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery.”
“Who am I as a government? Or anyone else? Or who am I as a man standing here now to tell you what you should put in your body?” he asked.
Ladapo said some vaccines are mandated by the Florida Department of Health, but those requirements “are going to be gone.”
“We are going to work with the governor and law makers to get rid of the rest,” he added.
Ladapo did not lay out a timeline to end the mandates.
Currently in Florida, children without vaccine exemptions are required to take most vaccines on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s childhood immunization schedule to attend daycare or school. This includes shots for hepatitis B, measles, mumps, rubella, chicken pox, polio, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, pneumococcal vaccine, the Hib vaccine and others.
Vaccine rates in Florida reportedly dropping
Vaccination rates in the state have reportedly declined under Ladapo, with 90.6% of kindergarteners vaccinated, the lowest number in over a decade, according to the Tallahassee Democrat.
The rate of religious exemptions in the state has been increasing, according to the state’s public health department.
Ladapo, a graduate of Harvard Medical School, has been widely praised by critics of the COVID-19 vaccines and people in the health freedom movement generally for his critiques of questionable guidance issued by public health agencies.
In April 2020, he garnered national attention for his critique of the government’s pandemic management measures in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal called “Lockdowns Won’t Stop the Spread.”
In September 2021, Ladapo was appointed Florida’s surgeon general.
In 2023, he issued a health alert to the Florida healthcare sector and to the public, warning that COVID-19 mRNA vaccines caused a “substantial increase” in reports of adverse events in Florida.
Last year, Ladapo called for a halt in the use of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines over safety concerns that the mRNA technology is delivering DNA contaminants into people’s cells.
He also played a key role in the decision for Florida to become the second state to ban fluoride in public drinking water.
The mainstream media and its go-to commentators on public health — such as Dr. Paul Offit, who was removed from his vaccine advisory position at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday — denounced the move to end the mandates, saying it would put children at risk.
Those news organizations also argue that vaccines are key tools for public health.
Florida’s announcement follows a similar move last month in Idaho, where Gov. Brad Little signed into law the Idaho Medical Freedom Act, which prohibits most medical mandates in the state.
At today’s press conference, DeSantis announced the state will establish its own Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission at the state level.
