Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, with his son, Mason, listens as Dr. Joseph Ladapo, the surgeon general of Florida, addresses the media during a press conference Tuesday, January 4, 2022 in Jacksonville, Florida to discuss Covid-19 testing policy and monoclonal antibody treatment availability.

Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo said he doesn't need to study the potential impact of ending vaccine mandates for children before his state becomes the first to do so in 45 years.

"We do have outbreaks in Florida, just like every state, and we manage those," Ladapo told host Jake Tapper on CNN's "State of the Union" on Sept. 7. "So there are no new, special, you know, special procedures that need to be made."

Tapper asked Ladapo specifically why providing health and religious exemptions to general vaccine mandates wasn't enough to satisfy concerns.

"It's really about ethics," Ladapo said. "You have sovereignty over your body, and that's that."

Ladapo made the comments after Florida officials on Sept. 3 announced a plan to repeal its vaccine requirements for children attending public schools.

Under current Florida law, public school children must be vaccinated against polio, measles, mumps and other communicable diseases. The law allows for religious and health exemptions.

The proposed change comes as U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has faced growing scrutiny over his vaccine skepticism, which critics say is jeopardizing evidence-based avenues to prevent dangerous outbreaks.

In June, Kennedy fired all 17 members of a CDC vaccine advisory panel, saying a "clean sweep" was needed "to reestablish public confidence in vaccine science."

At a Sept. 3 news conference, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis defended the plan to remove all vaccine requirements for the state's public school children, citing what he characterized as lessons from government overreach through COVID-19-specific vaccine and mask requirements.

"We ought to be empowering parents, rather than trying to take away the rights of parents," DeSantis said.

At the Sept. 3 news conference, Ladapo likened vaccine requirements to "slavery."

"Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery," Ladapo said. "Pretty much every state has them. It's wrong, it's immoral."

Evidence demonstrates that various vaccines have been highly effective in reducing or eradicating diseases.

A World Health Organization-led study published in 2024 indicated that about 154 million lives had been saved through vaccines in the previous 50 years. Nearly 94 million of those lives were saved through measles vaccines.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, polio vaccines have prevented about 20 million cases of paralysis in children since 1988.

Contributing: Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy and Mary Walrath-Holdridge, USA TODAY; Ana Goñi-Lessan, USA TODAY Network

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Florida surgeon general says he doesn't need to study impact of ending vaccine mandate

Reporting by Aysha Bagchi, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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