The announcement was made by Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo on Sept. 3.
Florida’s surgeon general, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, announced on Sept. 3 that he was working to eliminate all vaccine mandates from state law.
“The Florida Department of Health, in partnership with the governor, is going to be working to end all vaccine mandates in Florida law,” he said at a press conference. “All of them.”
Governor DeSantis Announces Florida MAHA Commission and Medical Freedom Protections https://t.co/o4lglzuXAT
— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) September 3, 2025
“Every last one is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery,” Ladapo said.
“Who am I, as a government, or anyone else, or who am I as a man standing here 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. Your body is a gift from God. What you put into your body is because of your relationship with your Body and your God.”
The surgeon general reiterated that neither he nor the government had the right to force vaccines upon people and urged those listening to take that power away from the government and make their own informed decisions.
Jeff Childers, an attorney in Gainesville, Florida, who spent years opposing mask and vaccination mandates in court during the COVID-19 pandemic and runs a blog called “Coffee and Covid,” celebrated the news as “vindicating.”
He told The Epoch Times that Ladapo’s use of the word slavery was more than just a “rhetorical trick” and touched on a related issue: bodily autonomy.
“This is about a kind of fundamental human liberty,” he said.
“The sanctity of your body, or whether you can be considered property when the community requires it, that’s that kind of polarizing issue like slavery, that there is no in between.
“Either you’re the kind of person that thinks that all of us should be prepared to take one for the team if the community needs it, or you’re the kind of person that thinks that, no, you can never make somebody do something like that against their will.”
Ladapo said that the Florida Department of Health was able to start the process by striking down rules established by his predecessors that mandated several vaccines, and then his department would work with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state’s lawmakers to eliminate the rest of the mandates.
By T.J. Muscaro
