Login
The Florida Department of Health’s effort to eliminate school and daycare vaccine mandates has hit a legal roadblock after the Florida Academy of Family Physicians (FAFP) filed a petition challenging the proposed changes.
The recently filed petition argues that the department’s proposal exceeded its statutory authority, failed to provide new medical evidence questioning the vaccines’ safety and violated procedural deadlines for adopting the rule.
The proposal, backed by Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, aims to change vaccine requirements — including hepatitis B, chickenpox, Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) and pneumococcal disease — for schoolchildren.
Ladapo has defended it as a matter of parental rights, arguing that families — not the government — should decide which vaccines their children receive.
“We are not insensitive to the fact that people do have illness, and that’s a challenge,” Ladapo said earlier this month. “That cannot supersede the right of a parent to make a decision about what’s best for their child.”
In a statement to The Defender, the FAFP said:
“For families with infants, children undergoing cancer treatment, people with compromised immune systems and others at greater risk, removal of these protections can have very real consequences. Those impacts deserve careful consideration before longstanding requirements are removed.”
The proposal would revise Florida Administrative Code Rule 64D-3.046, which governs immunization requirements for children entering schools and childcare facilities.
The changes were expected to take effect this year, but the legal challenge has complicated that schedule.
“The timeline will be contingent on legal outcomes,” Florida Department of Health spokesperson Isabel White said.
The Defender is 100% reader-supported. No corporate sponsors. No paywalls. Our writers and editors rely on you to fund stories like this that mainstream media won’t write. 
This article was funded by critical thinkers like you.
What comes next
The petition — filed on behalf of the FAFP, its president, Dr. Danielle Carter and three individuals identified only by their initials — will now face judicial review.
The physicians group also alleges that the department violated Florida’s rulemaking requirements by taking 225 days to publish the final rule after initially proposing the changes in December. State law requires the process to be completed within 180 days, the group said.
The outcome of the case could determine whether Florida can proceed with eliminating the four mandates or must reconsider its approach.
The proposal would not eliminate all school vaccine mandates. Requirements for other diseases — measles-mumps-rubella, polio, diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus — would remain in place.
Parents could still voluntarily obtain the four vaccines no longer required for enrollment.
The legal challenge comes after Florida officials abandoned a separate proposal to expand vaccine exemptions to include moral or ethical objections. The department removed that language from its revised proposal in September.
Related articles in The Defender- Florida Parents, Doctors Clash Over Plan to Drop 4 Vaccine Mandates for Schoolchildren
- Efforts to Roll Back Childhood Vaccine Mandates in Florida Stall — What’s Next?
- Florida to ‘End All Vaccine Mandates,’ State’s Surgeon General Announces
- ‘Science Is on Our Side’: Critics Fire Back at AP Report on ‘Wave of Anti-Science Bills’
- Bhattacharya Opposes Vaccine Mandates, Promises to Tackle Chronic Disease Epidemic
- Under Pressure, Michigan Makes It Easier to Opt Out of Vaccine Tracking
- CHD Urges Supreme Court to Protect West Virginians’ Religious Freedom and Parents’ Rights
