The US is continuing its descent into a pseudoscientific, conspiracy-ridden spiral. In the newest episode, Florida announced that it is ending all vaccine mandates, including for measles, mumps, chicken pox, polio, and hepatitis.

The announcement was made by Florida’s surgeon general Joseph Ladapo, a long-time vaccine denier who has altered data in a 2022 study about Covid-19 vaccines in an attempt to exaggerate the risk.

Voluntarily Rejecting Basic Science

Vaccines have saved millions of lives. Thanks to childhood immunizations, we’ve nearly eradicated diseases that once haunted schools and playgrounds. It’s estimated that the measles vaccine alone has saved over 20,000,000 million lives worldwide. Vaccines are, by and large, the most cost-effective approach for reducing childhood disease burden.

This isn’t new or breaking science. It’s something we’ve known for decades, and study after study has proven the effectiveness of the approved vaccines. Yet, in Florida, like in much of the US, science doesn’t matter much.

“Every last one of them [vaccines] is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery,” said Ladapo, who has promoted unproven treatments and has been labeled a “charlatan” by former colleagues.

“People have a right to make their own decisions. Who am I, as a government or anyone else, to tell you what you should put in your body? Our body is a gift from God. What you put into your body is because of your relationship with your body and your God.”

Public health experts reacted how you’d expect them to react. Everyone is ringing the alarm and cautioning that this is a very bad idea. The American Academy of Pediatrics warned the rollback puts schools — and entire communities — at heightened risk of outbreaks. Meanwhile, California, Oregon, and Washington formed a regional alliance to preserve strong immunization policies, explicitly reacting to Florida’s move.

Why This Is a Very Bad Idea

Ladapo and Florida governor Ron DeSantis want to frame this as a bold new approach. They want this to be about freedom. But this isn’t about freedom; it’s about abandoning your citizens and not doing what we know is right for them.

Take measles, for instance. It’s one of the most contagious viruses on Earth. A single carrier can infect up to 90% of unvaccinated people nearby. It then resets your immune system and makes you more vulnerable to other diseases as well. Measles used to kill millions annually worldwide before the widespread availability of the measles vaccine in the 1960s and 1970s. Polio would kill or paralyze over half a million people worldwide, including thousands of Americans, and we could go on.

The other reason why vaccines are so important is that they produce herd immunity for viruses with no variants. When enough people are immunized, the virus hits a wall — it can’t jump from person to person fast enough to spread. Break that chain, and diseases like measles or polio sputter out before they get a foothold. Newborns who are still too young for their first shots, cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy whose immune systems can’t handle vaccines, transplant recipients taking immune-suppressing drugs, and older adults whose immunity has faded with age rely on herd immunity. It also shields people with allergies or medical conditions that make vaccination unsafe. Tear down herd immunity and you’re putting the most vulnerable at risk and inviting diseases to return.

Even financially, vaccines have made a huge positive impact. It’s estimated that the national vaccine program resulted in direct savings of $540bn and societal savings of $2.7tn.

Florida Man

Florida’s embrace of the “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) campaign, led by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., marks a national-level push to dismantle long-standing vaccine protections. This isn’t about public health but rather about ideology. And if you’re unlucky enough to be an unvaccinated kid in a school without immunity blankets, you’ve just become the test subject.

Vaccine deniers want to make it sound like there’s some huge conspiracy around vaccines. In fact, vaccine mandates are about building a baseline of safety for individuals and for society. They ensure that no child had to sit in a classroom with a ticking biological time bomb next to them. Remove that baseline, and you’re effectively running an experiment without consent, gambling that freedom rhetoric will somehow hold off viral replication. Spoiler: it won’t.

It doesn’t often happen in history that states voluntarily give up on progress and science, especially on something that offers such tangible benefits. Florida is marching backward into a past filled with iron lungs, quarantines, and childhood graves.

In the end, the Sunshine State may soon discover that viruses don’t care about politics or slogans. They only care about hosts. And Florida is about to offer them plenty.