Pandemic Center

Florida State Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo announced that The Sunshine State will become the first in the nation to remove the mandatory vaccination mandate for schoolchildren. That means that by the end of 2025, kids entering public school will no longer be required to have vaccinations for contagious diseases such as Chicken Pox, Hepatitis B among others. While Dr. Ladapo says the decision will ultimately give power back to individuals are parents to decide what they put in their children’s bodies, other medial professional disagree with the decision and say a health crisis could be looming. Former Florida Surgeon General and Professor of Education at Brown University’s School of Public Health, Dr. Scott Rivkees, sat with us to talk about the ramifications that could come, not just with kids, but with public health as well.

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GAINESVILLE, Fla. (WCJB) - Children in Florida are required to get several vaccines before they begin school. It’s a requirement supported by Dr. Scott Rivkees.

“Schools should be places where children should be able to go to without having to worry about getting vaccine preventable diseases,” he told TV20.

He was the state’s former surgeon general during Gov. Ron DeSantis’ first term and helped lead the state during the start of COVID-19.

Rivkees is now a professor at Brown University, but is sounding off on the state’s plan to eliminate vaccines mandates for children. It’s a decision made earlier this month by Dr. Joseph Ladapo, the man who replaced Rivkees who left his post in 2021.

On Sunday, after four days of silence about how Ladapo’s all-encompassing goal would be achieved, the health department issued a statement saying it was proposing a rule change “to remove requirements for childhood immunizations … not required for school entry” such as hepatitis B, varicella (chickenpox), and influenza.

Vaccine requirements for polio, diphtheria, measles, whooping cough, mumps and tetanus, it said, “remain in place, unless updated through legislation”, and “all vaccines will remain available to families throughout Florida”.

Scott Rivkees, an infectious diseases expert at Brown University and former Florida surgeon general under DeSantis, told the Guardian it appeared Ladapo was in retreat.

Earlier this week, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, with Gov. Ron DeSantis at his side, likened childhood vaccines to slavery and recommended that requirements for childhood vaccination be eliminated. Children in Florida will now be more at risk of vaccine-preventable illnesses than at any time in recent history, but the move will also have an impact in the broader population.

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) – There’s mixed reaction among Floridians following Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo’s push to end vaccine mandates.

One person against this new push is Dr. Scott Rivkees, who was state Surgeon General from 2019 to 2021 with the DeSantis Administration.

“From a public health, medical, and view as a parent, this is a sad day for Florida,” Rivkees said.

The former state health official is now a professor at Brown University in Rhode Island. Rivkees questions the purpose of the state’s push for vaccine mandate elimination.
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The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is adopting a recommendation from independent advisers to drop thimerosal, a preservative found in about 4% of flu vaccines, despite evidence that it poses no risks and helps prevent bacterial and fungal infections.

But Robert F Kennedy Jr, the HHS secretary, has not adopted two other votes from the advisory meeting: recommending annual flu vaccines for everyone over the age of six months and RSV shots for infants.

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