Amid School Measles Outbreak, Florida Rejects CDC Guidance

State surgeon general tells parents they can send unvaccinated kids to school if they want
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 23, 2024 5:00 PM CST
Florida Says It's OK to Send Unvaccinated Kids to School
People who have had the full two doses of the MMR vaccine are 98% protected, health officials say.   (Getty Images/Chinnapong)

Florida's surgeon general has told parents of children at a school experiencing a measles outbreak that they can feel free to ignore Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance. In a Feb. 20 letter, Joseph Ladapo told parents at Manatee Bay Elementary in south Florida that the state's health department "is deferring to parents or guardians to make decisions about school attendance," CBS reports. The letter noted that up to 90% of people without immunity will get measles if exposed, and when "measles is detected in a school, it is normally recommended that individuals without history of prior infection or vaccination stay home for up to 21 days."

"However," Ladapo wrote, the health department is deferring the decision to parents "due to the high immunity rate in the community, as well as the burden on families and educational cost of healthy children missing school." Experts including Ben Hoffman, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said they were alarmed by Florida's decision to reject the CDC's guidance. "It runs counter to everything I have ever heard and everything that I have read," Hoffman said. The CDC warns that measles is extremely contagious and around one in five people who catch it will be hospitalized. Around one in 10 develop infections that can lead to hearing loss, and around 1 in 1,000 die.

Officials said Wednesday that six children at Manatee Bay had measles—and 33 of 1,067 students were unvaccinated "for various reasons," NBC Miami reports. In September, Ladapo and Gov. Ron DeSantis advised against getting the new COVID-19 booster. In his letter to parents this week, Ladapo did not urge parents to have children vaccinated against measles. "The reason why there is a measles outbreak in Florida schools is because too many parents have not had their children protected by the safe and effective measles vaccine," John P. Moore, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Weill Cornell Medical College, tells the Washington Post. "And why is that? It's because anti-vaccine sentiment in Florida comes from the top of the public health food-chain: Joseph Ladapo." (More measles stories.)

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