{"id":227194,"date":"2025-09-14T22:25:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-14T22:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/227194\/"},"modified":"2025-09-14T22:25:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-14T22:25:09","slug":"jacksonville-chief-health-officer-stresses-safety-florida-surgeon-general-defends-parental-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/227194\/","title":{"rendered":"Jacksonville chief health officer stresses safety, Florida surgeon general defends parental rights"},"content":{"rendered":"

JACKSONVILLE, Fla.<\/strong> \u2013 Florida\u2019s decision to end school vaccine mandates<\/a> has sparked debate between health officials and state leaders over public safety and parental rights.<\/p>\n

Dr. Sunil Joshi, Jacksonville\u2019s chief medical officer, stressed the importance of longstanding vaccines like measles, mumps, rubella, and polio, which have been mandated since the 1950s and 60s.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore the vaccines came out, over 500,000 people in this country got measles. And 500 children died from that,\u201d Joshi said. \u201cIf we didn\u2019t have the vaccine, that would translate to 1 million people with measles and 1,000 children dying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joshi highlighted how mandates create herd immunity in schools, protecting children and communities. He warned that declining vaccination rates have led to outbreaks, citing Texas, where less than 50% vaccination caused 1,500 measles cases and three child deaths.<\/p>\n

Addressing the choice argument, Joshi said, \u201cThe government tells us a lot of things that we can and can\u2019t put into our bodies. Right. You\u2019re not supposed to take cocaine or heroin or things like that. Not supposed to drive drunk or intoxicated. So there\u2019s a lot of things that the government tells us that we can and can\u2019t do. We wear seatbelts. We stop at the stop sign. We stop at a red light. All of that is to protect the public from tragedy. The same thing is true with these vaccines that have been around and mandated for generations.\u201d <\/p>\n

RELATED: <\/b>This Week In Jacksonville: Debate over vaccine mandates in Florida<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

In contrast, Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo said the repeal respects parental rights and informed consent. <\/p>\n

\u201cParents should have the ability and the power to decide what goes into their children\u2019s bodies. It\u2019s that simple,\u201d Ladapo said.<\/p>\n

Ladapo called mandates coercive, undermining ethical medical practice, and pointed to countries like the UK and Denmark without mandates where \u201cthe sky is not falling.\u201d <\/p>\n

MORE: <\/b>Florida\u2019s plan to drop school vaccine rule won\u2019t start for 90 days, won\u2019t cover all diseases<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Jacksonville\u2019s Flu VAX Jax initiative offers free flu vaccines to uninsured residents, aiming to reduce hospitalizations from preventable illnesses.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 Florida\u2019s decision to end school vaccine mandates has sparked debate between health officials and state…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":227195,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,3188,723,210,7310,114508,80,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,2857],"class_list":{"0":"post-227194","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-fl","10":"tag-florida","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-jacksonville","13":"tag-joseph-ladapo","14":"tag-politics","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa","21":"tag-vaccines"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115205002082444383","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227194\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}