Statement from Florida Families for Vaccines and the Florida Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics
Re: Rule 64D-3.046

December 22, 2025

We, the undersigned Florida-based and national organizations serving families across the state, write to express deep concern regarding the Florida Department of Health’s ongoing rulemaking process under Rule 64D-3.046, which considers weakening or eliminating long-standing childcare and school vaccine requirements.

Our organizations represent pediatricians, physicians, nurses, infectious disease specialists, hospitals, educators, childcare providers, businesses, faith-based service organizations, parents, and community leaders who collectively serve millions of Florida families. Many of us provide direct care to children. Others support the schools, workplaces, and community systems families rely on every day. All of us share responsibility for protecting children’s health and keeping Florida’s communities safe.

Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo has publicly signaled his intent to weaken or eliminate childhood vaccine requirements, and the Department of Health’s current rulemaking effort represents a significant step toward changing the existing framework. Removing Hepatitis B, Varicella, Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib), and Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine (PCV) from Florida’s school-entry immunization certification form (DH 680) would effectively eliminate those requirements statewide. Because Form 680 serves as the state’s mechanism for implementing childcare and school immunization standards, removing vaccines from the form would take effect immediately and carry broad implications for families, providers, and schools.

These vaccines are supported by every major medical and pediatric society in the country and relied upon by clinicians across Florida. They have a long, well-documented history of preventing serious illness, lifelong disability, and death. Eliminating these requirements would significantly increase outbreak risk, particularly for infants, immunocompromised children, pregnant people, and medically vulnerable family members. Florida is already experiencing warning signs. Vaccination rates are declining in key regions of the state while vaccine-preventable diseases are resurging nationwide. This year, whooping cough (pertussis) has surged dramatically on the national scale, killing at least five infants in Louisiana and Kentucky and sickening nearly 25,000 people. Weakening vaccine protections now would place Florida families at avoidable  and foreseeable risk.

The safety and health of Florida’s children should not be subject to uncertainty or abrupt changes. Public health policy must be grounded in medical expertise, scientific evidence, and the lived experience of the clinicians, educators, and families who would bear the consequences of these decisions.

Public opinion is clear. The vast majority of parents across the political spectrum in Florida and nationwide, support strong childcare and school vaccine requirements with appropriate medical and religious exemptions. Weakening these protections is out of step with medical consensus, public sentiment, and decades of successful public health practice.

We urge the Florida Department of Health to preserve Florida’s longstanding childcare and school vaccine requirements by maintaining all current vaccine protections on Form DH 680, ensure that Florida SHOTS and the state’s exemption framework remain strong and reliable, and commit to a transparent and accessible rulemaking process. Keeping these safeguards intact is essential to protecting children, supporting families, and maintaining the stability that schools, childcare providers, and communities across Florida depend on.