Florida House kills DeSantis proposal to allow unvaccinated children in schools

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' plans to upend childhood vaccination requirements continues to be thwarted by his fellow Republicans. Just minutes into a special session on Tuesday, Florida House Speaker Daniel Perez announced that the Republican-led chamber would not take up a proposal from DeSantis to allow children to opt out of certain school vaccination requirements. The move effectively killed the proposal, which had been backed by the Senate.

Perez, a father from Miami with three young children, said he was concerned by the idea of "children being in school without measles and mumps and polio and chickenpox vaccines that have been working for decades," according to The New York Times, which reported from the State Capitol. "That was something that I was uncomfortable with."

Specifically, the proposal—the Medical Freedom bill—would have given parents the option to exempt children from required vaccinations based on their "conscience." The state already allows for medical- and religious-based exemptions.

DeSantis' efforts to make it easier for children to attend school unvaccinated follow an announcement last September by Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo that he and DeSantis would work to end all vaccine mandates in the state. "All of them, all of them, all of them, every last one of them," Ladapo said. "Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery."

But ending some mandates would require legislative changes, and so far, support for such changes has not been forthcoming—or popular among the public. In October, a poll by the University of North Florida found that 63 percent of Floridians are against ending vaccine mandates. That includes 48 percent who were strongly opposed.

On social media, DeSantis responded to the House's rejection by calling it "typical political shenanigans." Ladapo also responded, saying: "The governor's agenda to defend freedom, whether from medical tyranny or tech oligarchs, is something Floridians and Americans everywhere want and value. Members of the Florida House should be leading that effort, not standing in the way."

According to the Times, Ladapo is still working with the state health department to repeal mandates for vaccines against: varicella (chickenpox); hepatitis B; pneumococcal bacteria; and Haemophilus influenzae type B, or Hib, a bacterium that can be deadly. Requirements for vaccinations against measles, mumps, rubella, pertussis (whooping-cough), diphtheria, and polio would require legislation to change.