Florida to end vaccine mandates for children as FL surgeon general likens them to 'slavery'

[Ilsa]

Children in Florida will no longer be required to receive vaccines against preventable diseases including measles, mumps, chicken pox, polio and hepatitis said Joseph Ladapo, the state’s surgeon general, on Wednesday in a speech during which he likened vaccine mandates to “slavery”.

Ladapo, hand-picked for the role by Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Republican governor, is a long-time skeptic of the benefit of vaccines, and has previously been accused of peddling “scientific nonsense” by public health advocates.


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In his announcement on Wednesday, at a press conference in Tampa hosted by DeSantis, he said that every state vaccine requirement would be repealed, and that he expected the move would receive the blessing “of God”.

“Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery,” said Ladapo, who altered data in a 2022 study about Covid-19 vaccines in an attempt to exaggerate the risk to young men who took one.