GoKawiilFlorida Governor Ron DeSantis’s plans to upend childhood vaccination requirements continues to be thwarted by his fellow Republicans.
Just minutes into a special session on Tuesday, Florida House Speaker Daniel Perez announced that the Republican-led chamber would not take up a proposal from DeSantis to allow children to opt out of certain school vaccination requirements. The move effectively killed the proposal, which had been backed by the Senate.
Perez, a father from Miami with three young children, said he was concerned by the idea of “children being in school without measles and mumps and polio and chickenpox vaccines that have been working for decades,” according to The New York Times, which reported from the State Capitol. “That was something that I was uncomfortable with.”
Specifically, the proposal—the Medical Freedom bill—would have given parents the option to exempt children from required vaccinations based on their “conscience.” The state already allows for medical- and religious-based exemptions.
DeSantis’ efforts to make it easier for children to attend school unvaccinated follow an announcement last September by Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo that he and DeSantis would work to end all vaccine mandates in the state.