Florida’s plan to lift mandates on certain school vaccines likely won’t take effect for about 90 days and would initially cover only a few illnesses, the state health department said Sunday.
The vaccines affected include chickenpox, hepatitis B, Hib influenza, and pneumococcal diseases such as meningitis. Other required vaccinations, including measles, polio, diphtheria, pertussis, mumps, and tetanus, remain in place unless lawmakers pass additional legislation.
The department issued its guidance in response to a request for details, four days after Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo announced that the state would become the first in the U.S. to allow families to decide whether to vaccinate their children. Speaking on CNN, Ladapo emphasized parental choice. “If you want them, God bless, you can have as many as you want. And if you don’t want them, parents should have the ability and the power to decide what goes into their children’s bodies. It’s that simple,” he said.
The department confirmed that the rule change was initiated on September 3, 2025, and will take roughly 90 days to go into effect. Florida public schools began the 2025–26 academic year in August. Lawmakers are not scheduled to reconvene until January 2026, although committee meetings will begin in October, leaving the possibility for additional updates or expansions to the mandates.
Health experts warn that the timing of Florida’s plan is concerning given a surge in vaccine-preventable illnesses in the U.S. This year has seen the worst measles outbreak in more than three decades, with over 1,400 confirmed cases nationwide, mostly in Texas, and three reported deaths. Whooping cough has also spread rapidly, killing at least two infants in Louisiana and a five-year-old in Washington state since winter. Preliminary CDC data show more than 19,000 cases of whooping cough as of August 23—nearly 2,000 more than the same period last year.
Florida already allows a religious exemption for vaccines, a policy that remains in place. Vaccinations are credited with saving at least 154 million lives globally over the past 50 years, according to the World Health Organization, with most of the lives saved being infants and children.
The debate over Florida’s vaccine plan underscores the tension between parental choice and public health, particularly as outbreaks of measles and whooping cough continue to rise across the U.S.
