As Florida plans to phase out childhood vaccine mandates, Northeastern policy experts say it would undo decades of public health protections and expose children to once-common pediatric diseases that devastated communities.
They also say to expect more challenges to both childhood and adult vaccine access as early as this month as Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the U.S. secretary of Health and Human Services, reviews the immunization schedules.
Concerns over outbreaks
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and state Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo announced Florida’s plan Wednesday to end childhood vaccination requirements for school attendance. Florida would be the first state to end childhood vaccine mandates.
The move concerns Northeastern’s Wendy Parmet, a leading expert on public health law.
“There are a lot of vaccine-preventable diseases that are likely to reemerge,” says Parmet, who directs the Center for Health Policy and Law at Northeastern’s School of Law.
“It’s very worrisome as we go into the school year,” adds Neil Maniar, director of Northeastern’s master of public health program.
He says he is especially concerned about highly transmissible diseases like measles, which killed two children during a recent outbreak among an unvaccinated population in West Texas.
“There’s a high likelihood that we will see measles outbreaks in Florida as vaccination rates drop within different communities and within different schools,” Maniar says.
