Florida’s surgeon general called school vaccine mandates ‘slavery.’ They’re not.
Florida’s Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo said the state’s health department will end “every single” school vaccine mandate, which includes many routine children’s immunizations.
Ladapo, who has a history of spreading inaccurate vaccine claims, equated the state’s vaccine requirements with slavery.
“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.”
Ladapo mentioned enslavement again moments later: “If we want to move toward a perfect world, a better world, we can’t do it by enslaving people in terrible philosophies and taking away people’s freedoms. That’s not the path … we have to find alternative pathways.”
Florida has exemptions from vaccine participation; enslaved people had no exemptions or options. (Some slaves were able to self-emancipate but this was rare. Self-emancipation was extremely difficult and dangerous; people who attempted risked severe punishment, enslavement or death.)
Experts in public health called Ladapo’s statement false and inflammatory.
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