In ongoing upheaval over antivaccine policies espoused by Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., his allies in Florida today—in a national first—announced plans to scrap requirements for school-based vaccination.
Meanwhile, more than 1,000 HHS employees today released a letter Kennedy resign.
Florida announcement runs counter to mountain of evidence
Florida currently requires several routine childhood vaccines for daycare and preschool, as well as for elementary and secondary public school students.
At a briefing today, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, MD, PhD, said the state would work to eliminate all vaccine mandates, NBC News reported. He said the mandates are wrong and "drip with disdain and slavery." He added that the Florida Department of Health will work with the Governor Ron DeSantis to unwind the policies that have been in place for many decades and are widely credited with lowering childhood illness.
Ladapo's announcement came a DeSantis announced the establishment of a Florida Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) initiative that aligns with the federal MAHA efforts proposed by Kennedy. Ladapo is known for allowing parents of children with measles to decide if their unvaccinated children stay home from school during a school-based measles outbreak, which runs counter to well-accepted public health recommendations. Also, Ladapo has called for an end to the use of mRNA COVID vaccines.
Today's announcement drew strong criticism from the public health community and comes as Kennedy's anti-vaccine measures are prompting the firing and resignations of top Centers for Disease Control and Prevention staff and drawing deep concerns from some lawmakers.
It flies in the face of a mountain of evidence that clearly shows the benefits of vaccinating kids before they enter school, and it makes the entire state less safe to visit or live in.
Michael Osterholm, PhD, MPH, director at the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota and leader of the Vaccine Integrity Project, said in a statement that the reckless decision will endanger the health of Florida's children. CIDRAP is the publisher of CIDRAP News.
"It flies in the face of a mountain of evidence that clearly shows the benefits of vaccinating kids before they enter school, and it makes the entire state less safe to visit or live in," he said. "Every parent of a child who dies or who is hospitalized with a vaccine-preventable disease will know exactly why."
HHS employees call for Kennedy's resignation
In other developments today, more than 1,000 current and former HHS staff released a letter calling for Kennedy to resign. The letter is separate from but builds on an August 20 letter that HHS employees released after the August 8 armed attack on CDC headquarters that has now been cosigned by 6,370 people, 887 of them from HHS.
The new letter, posted on the Save HHS website, said Kennedy continues to endanger the public's health by facilitating the firing of the CDC's newly confirmed Director Susan Monarez, PhD, prompting the resignations of three top CDC scientists, and appointing ideologues, mostly without scientific credentials, to manipulate vaccine data to fit predetermined conclusions.
In the letter, the group also said Kennedy is disregarding the Trump Administration's own "gold standard" scientific policy, has rolled back COVID vaccine availability without providing evidence to back the policy changes, and has disparaged the HHS workforce by claiming that trusting experts is not a feature of either a science or democracy.
"Should he decline to resign, we call upon the President and U.S. Congress to appoint a new Secretary of Health and Human Services, one whose qualifications and experience ensure that health policy is informed by independent and unbiased peer-reviewed science," the group wrote. "We expect those in leadership to act when the health of Americans is at stake."
Should he decline to resign, we call upon the President and U.S. Congress to appoint a new Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Some lawmakers have pressed for Kennedy to appear before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) committee to defend his recent actions. So far, no HELP committee hearing has been scheduled, but tomorrow Kennedy will testify before the Senate Finance Committee to discuss MAHA actions and plans for the future. It's unclear if the committee will ask Kennedy about the shakeup at the CDC or other recent actions, especially regarding vaccines.
FDA questions vaccine coadministration, ousts Kennedy critic from panel
Meanwhile, several other developments regarding federal vaccine policy have made news headlines over the past day.
New leadership at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), including Kennedy allies, are questioning the safety of co-administering flu and COVID vaccines, the Washington Post reported today. Giving both vaccines at the same time has been recommended as an option to ease the uptake of both vaccines ahead of the winter respiratory virus season. No safety signals have been reported, and studies have not shown that the practice erodes the benefit of either vaccine.
Officials announced that vaccine companies must conduct new clinical trials before claiming that co-administering the vaccines is safe and effective.
Also, Paul Offit, MD, an infectious disease specialist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, has been removed the FDA's vaccine advisory committee, Endpoints News reported yesterday. In an email, Offit told Endpoints that he wasn't given a reason for his dismissal from the FDA's Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC). He was serving the last of his two 4-year terms and had 2 years remaining on his appointment.
Offit's ouster is the latest in HHS efforts to sideline expert committees or stack them with people who align with Kennedy's priorities. Offit on his Substack blog has been a frequent critic of Kennedy's policies regarding vaccines.
