I’m a Florida mom. I do not spend my free time reading the Florida Administrative Code & Register. I’m guessing most parents don’t. But this week, something showed up there that every Florida parent should know about. The Florida Department of Health has formally proposed changing our state’s school vaccine rules.
The proposal would remove hepatitis B, varicella (chickenpox), Hib, and pneumococcal vaccines from the requirements for children entering PreK-12 schools. It would also broaden Florida’s religious exemption language to include "moral" or "ethical" beliefs and make changes to participation in the state immunization registry.
Because these protections are established through administrative rule, they can be changed without a vote of the Legislature.
The vaccine debate Florida families just spent months following at the Capitol has moved to an obscure administrative process.
Parents, physicians, and families showed up for the debate in Tallahassee. Families contacted their lawmakers from communities across the state. And, proposals to expand vaccine exemptions failed because of the strong support from Floridians to maintain our current safeguards. Before that, parents, physicians, and public health experts traveled to Panama City Beach for a Department of Health workshop in December. They asked questions, shared personal experiences, and raised concerns about changing protections that have been in place for years.
Now the formal proposed rule is here. Floridians have another opportunity to speak up. And despite how divided the political conversation around vaccines can sometimes sound, Florida families are not nearly as divided as you might think. Nearly eight in 10 Florida voters support maintaining our long standing school vaccine safeguards. That support has held steady across statewide surveys and reaches Republicans, Democrats, independents, and Floridians in every region of the state. The pro-vaccine majority is real. It is also much quieter than the political debate surrounding it.
I hear from parents across Florida every day. They are getting children to school, making pediatrician appointments, juggling work schedules, driving to practices, and trying to keep their families healthy. They also understand something every parent learns quickly: Our children do not live inside bubbles around our individual families. They sit beside one another in classrooms. They ride the same buses and carpools. They go home to newborn siblings, grandparents and family members whose immune systems may not protect them as well as ours do.
That is why decisions about infectious disease do not stop at one family’s front door. Florida has seen that firsthand this year as measles has returned to communities across our state. Measles is not one of the vaccine requirements this proposed rule would remove. But its return is a reminder that diseases we rarely had to think about can come back when they find opportunities to spread. Now Floridians have something very specific they can do.
Twenty-one days can disappear quickly in a life filled with school pickups, practices, work and everything else Florida families are juggling. I’ve seen the confusion firsthand in comments on news stories and social media from people who want to weigh in but simply don't know where or how to do it. The most direct route: go to the FLRules.org to find Proposed Rule 64D-3.046, click “Send a one-time comment to the Agency,” and tell them what you think.
Tell them who you are and why these protections matter. A parent explaining why a medically vulnerable child depends on the protection of the people around them matters. A teacher describing what widespread illness means for a classroom matters. A school nurse or pediatrician sharing what they see firsthand matters. A parent simply saying, “I support the protections we already have, and I do not want them weakened,” matters too.
Comments will be accepted until Sept. 14.
Florida families have spoken up every time this issue has come before us. We did it during the Department’s initial workshop. We did it during the legislative session. We did it during the special session. The debate has moved again, and our voices will move with it.
Kas Miller lives in Lakeland and is director of Florida Families for Vaccines, a statewide grassroots network of families advocating for evidence-based vaccine policy and healthier Florida communities.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Florida wants to weaken vaccine rules. We can stop that. | Opinion
