Florida's surgeon general called school vaccine mandates 'slavery.' They're not. - Poynter

""Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery," Ladapo said during a Sept. 3 press conference in Valrico with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. "Who am I as a man standing here right now to tell you what you should put in your body? Who am I to tell you what your child should put in their body? I don't have that right.""

"Experts in public health called Ladapo's statement false and inflammatory. "Slavery is the violent ownership of people," Tony Yang, a George Washington University health policy professor, said. "School-entry vaccination rules are safety conditions for participating in shared spaces - and they include due-process protections and exemptions." Dorit Reiss, a University of California-San-Francisco law professor who studies vaccine policy issues, including mandates, agreed. "Regulation in public health is not akin to slavery," Reiss said. "The opposite of slavery is not 'you can do whatever you want in a state regardless of the risk you pose to others.' Free societies have many regulations to protect others - for example, we"

Florida's Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo announced the state health department will end every school vaccine mandate, including many routine childhood immunizations. He compared mandates to slavery and said mandating vaccines violates personal and parental bodily autonomy. He repeated enslavement language and urged alternative pathways. Florida allows vaccine exemptions, while enslaved people had no options. Public health experts called the comparison false and inflammatory. Tony Yang said slavery is violent ownership and that school-entry vaccine rules are safety conditions with due-process protections and exemptions. Dorit Reiss said public health regulation is not akin to slavery and that free societies adopt regulations to protect others.

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