On September 3, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo announced that the state would become the first in the nation to eliminate all vaccine mandates, including those for schoolchildren — marking a dramatic break from decades of public health policy.

"Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery," Ladapo, a longtime vaccine skeptic , said at a press conference near Tampa. "Who am I as a man standing here now to tell you what you should put in your body? Who am I to tell you what your child should put in [their] body? I don't have that right. Your body is a gift from God."

The announcement quickly alarmed public health experts across the country and drew criticism from public officials on both sides of the political aisle, as well as Ladapo's own employer at th

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