Jacksonville's chief health officer, Sunil Joshi, speaks in 2023 | Casmira Harrison, Jacksonville Today
Published on September 5, 2025 at 3:16 pm
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The city of Jacksonville’s chief health officer and the president of the Duval County Medical Society have issued written rebukes of the DeSantis administration’s intent to phase out Florida’s childhood vaccine mandates.
Dr. Sunil Joshi announced his opposition to the proposal Friday in a news release from Mayor Donna Deegan’s office.
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Joshi said the push to end vaccine mandates for Florida children, outlined by Gov. Ron DeSantis and State Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo on Wednesday, would lower immunization rates and put children, adult care givers and personnel of Florida schools at risk of preventable diseases.
“Eliminating vaccine mandates for schoolchildren in Florida is not merely a rollback of generations of preventative health policy — it is a profound threat to public safety,” Joshi said in the statement.
He pointed out that the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the Florida Medical Association and the National Association of School Nurses warn that the move would erode decades of progress in controlling highly contagious, preventable diseases such as measles, mumps, whooping cough, polio, hepatitis and chicken pox.
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“Vaccines have been one of public health’s most effective defenses in preventing communicable diseases,” Joshi said.
The city’s statement followed a similar warning Thursday from Dr. Ali Kasraeian, president of the Duval County Medical Society.
“We are deeply concerned by efforts to dismantle longstanding childhood vaccine requirements in Florida,” Kasraeian said. “At a time when we should be strengthening the health of our communities, removing these safeguards threatens to reverse decades of progress against preventable disease.”
Read Kasraeian’s full statement here.
The local opposition comes amid growing uncertainty at the federal level about the future of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine guidelines.
During a news conference in Valrico, near Tampa, DeSantis also announced the creation of a state-level “Make America Health Again” commission modeled after similar initiatives endorsed by U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., according to a report from the Associated Press.
Kennedy faced tough questions Thursday from the Senate Committee on Finance about changes at the CDC and efforts to limit access to the latest COVID-19 vaccine boosters to people over the age of 65 and people who have underlying health conditions.
According to the Duval County Medical Society, more than 1,400 measles cases and 10,000 pertussis cases have been reported this year in the U.S., nearly double what was reported in 2024. Both diseases are covered in basic childhood immunatizations.
“Tragically, most occurred in individuals who were unvaccinated or whose vaccination status was unknown. Here in Jacksonville, we have seen firsthand the return of diseases once considered controlled,” Kasraeian said. “These outbreaks remind us that immunity is not a given; it is a responsibility we share.”
The medical society is a 172-year-old, physician-led organization that provides education to doctors and hospitals and engages in health care advocacy at the local, state and federal levels.
Kasraeian also extended an olive branch in his letter to work with state officials to preserve vaccine protections.
“To our state leaders, we say this: Medical freedom must never come at the expense of public safety,” he said. “True freedom means ensuring that every child can safely attend school; every parent can trust that their community is protected; and every family can thrive without fear of diseases we already know how to prevent.”
Joshi, an allergist, immunologist and past Duval medical society president, made an economic case for keeping vaccine mandates. His letter also criticized DeSantis and Ladapo’s characterization that the move was about medical freedom.
“Illness leads to school absenteeism among students, which translates to parents missing work, putting further strain on households, small businesses and communities,” Joshi said.
“Let’s be clear, this proposed policy is not about freedom — it’s about relinquishing vital safeguards that protect our children, our schools, and our communities. The risks are real, avoidable, and can be averted by maintaining vaccination requirements. Otherwise, we are playing with fire at the expense of public health,” he said.
According to the AP report, Ladapo said the state health department can purge its own rules for some vaccine mandates, but others would require action by the Florida Legislature. He did not specify any particular vaccines but repeated several times the effort would end “all of them. Every last one of them.”
