(Washington) Florida announced on Wednesday that they want to remove all vaccination obligations, including for schoolchildren, when California trains a “health alliance” against anti-diocend policies, in a context of strong division between pro and anti-top states.
Since the return to power of Republican President Donald Trump, the United States has started, under the leadership of the Secretary of Health, Robert Kennedy Jr., an overhaul of vaccination policy, restricting, for example, access to COVVI-19 vaccines or cutting funds for research.
In this wake, the highest health official of Florida compared the vaccination obligations to “slavery”.
Local authorities will “endeavor to put an end to all the vaccination obligations in Florida, all without exception, until the last,” said Joseph Ladapo, before an enthusiastic public at the Christian school Grace Christian School, in the center of this republican state, where the famous Mar-A-Lago residence of President Trump is located.
“Who am I, I who stand here in front of you, to tell you what you need to put in your body?” Who am I to tell you what your child has to put in his body? I do not have this right. Your body is a gift from God, ”said this doctor known for his opposition to the Vaccines against the COVVI-19.
Photo Nick Oxford, Reuters archives
The Secretary of Health, Robert Kennedy Jr.
“Children in danger”
If this measure were to apply, Florida would become the first American state to abandon vaccination obligations, however considered to have made it possible to eradicate diseases such as measles, mumps, rubella, polio and hepatitis B.
For Amesh Adalja, expert in infectious diseases at Johns Hopkins University, the announcement of Florida is “a servile capitulation before the antivaccin nihilist movement”.
“Vaccines are safe, effective and save lives,” abounds the epidemiologist Syra Madad. According to her, eliminating compulsory vaccination at school amounts to “endangering children and millions of other people”.
On Wednesday, more than a thousand employees and former employees of the US Health Department signed a letter addressed to parliamentarians asking Robert Kennedy Jr., accused of “endangering” the population.
Photo Julio Cortez, Associated Press Archives
Facts from the measles vaccine, mumps and rubella (Ror) in Lubbock, Texas
Critics against vaccines have amplified in recent years, fueled by false allegations like those associating them with autism. But the conservatives have always been more inclined to ask for exemptions for religious reasons.
In 2025, the United States experienced its worst measles epidemic in more than three decades.
“Politicization of science”
In contrast to the political spectrum, three democratic states retaliated on Wednesday by announcing the formation of a “health alliance”, in “response” to the dismissal last week of Susan Monarez, which was at the head of the main health agency in the country.
Accusing the Trump government of “politicization of science”, the Democratic leaders of California, Oregon and the State of Washington explained in a statement wanting to provide their residents with vaccination recommendations as well as information on the efficiency and security of vaccines “developed by scientists, doctors and other public health officials”.
This is not the first time that the Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, has erected himself against the government of Donald Trump, many observers considering him as a future serious presidential candidate.
In June, during the anti-Trump demonstrations of Los Angeles, Gavin Newsom opposed the deployment of the army by the president, who threatened to impose this same measure on other Democratic states.
More recently, the Democratic leader has entered a battle of the electoral cards initiated by the Republican State of Texas, with each the objective of promoting his respective camp.
