TALLAHASSEE — A group of physicians wants an administrative court to halt Florida’s push to remove the requirement for children to get four immunizations to attend schools and daycare facilities.
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The Florida Academy of Family Physicians filed a petition Friday with the Division of Administrative Hearings, alleging the Department of Health failed to follow proper procedures when moving to roll back the requirements for children to receive vaccines for Hepatitis B, varicella (chicken pox), Haemophilus influenza type b (Hib) and pneumococcal conjugate to attend Florida schools.
Joining the FAFP in filing the petition were Dr. Danielle Carter of Jacksonville; an anonymous 70-year-old with chronic myelomonocytic leukemia who is vulnerable to viruses, referred to as T.K. in the court documents; and an anonymous school nurse, known as K.O. in the court records.
The petition also claims the “philosophical beliefs” of Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, who helped spearhead the push for the repeal, do not override the department’s statutory mandate: “to prevent the spread of communicable diseases by supervising and securing the vaccination of all children in Florida against vaccine-preventable diseases.”
The requirements are an agency rule, not in state law, and can be repealed by the agency itself without legislative approval.
The petition says DOH “did nothing” to advance the rulemaking process for 225 days, when the time limit is 180 days.
If there is a delay, state law requires agencies to submit a “concise statement that identifies the reasons for the delay in rulemaking” every quarter. While DOH did send letters on Feb. 26 and June 30 to the Joint Administrative Procedures Committee, it did not identify any reasons for the delay in the rulemaking process, the petition argues.
“There were no legitimate reasons identified for the delay in rulemaking and the Department did not indicate that it would proceed with the issuance of a notice of proposed rule in its June 30 correspondence,” the petition states.
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DOH held its first public meeting on the issue Dec. 12, 2025, in Panama City. On Aug. 24, 2026, DOH proposed a new rule that followed the earlier vaccine rule almost word for word. On Sept. 30 of this year, DOH dropped its attempt to expand exemptions the immunization requirements and announced a public meeting Oct. 8 in Lake Mary to discuss the rule change.
The FAFP is asking DOAH for an administrative hearing and to determine the DOH acted outside their authority in pushing for the rule change.
Ladapo said the decision to remove the four vaccines from state requirements would improve parents’ rights in Florida, which would then benefit the overall health of the state.
“A public health system where parents are actively making decisions and choices about their health, about the health of their children, rather than just going along with something because they don’t feel like they have a choice, leads to a much stronger public health system,” Ladapo said.
Not so, the FAFP contends. The vaccine repeal proposal is not based on “new medical or scientific evidence or data calling into question the necessity, safety, or efficacy of these vaccines.” Instead, the move abandons “longstanding public health protections without conforming to recognized standards of medical practice, without corresponding medical or scientific justification, and in direct violation of the Department’s statutory duty.”
This year the Legislature rejected a call to remove all vaccine mandates, first pushed by Ladapo, Gov. Ron DeSantis and First Lady Casey DeSantis over a year ago.
No legislator filed a bill in any of the multiple legislative sessions in 2026 to remove all requirements, and attempts to pass a “Medical Freedom” bill that would have expanded vaccine exemptions and mandated doctors to provide an alternate vaccine schedule passed the Senate, but failed to pass the House.
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