It’s one thing for a layperson to question the science behind vaccines.
What Florida’s surgeon general did last week is on an entirely different level. After watching at least seven children at Weston’s Manatee Bay Elementary School fall ill to measles, an all-but-eradicated disease, Dr. Joseph Ladapo took it upon himself to send letters to parents there. At first, the letter seems routine — informing Manatee Bay parents of the outbreak, assuring them that public health officials are “tracking close contacts” to known cases and reminding them that children can be infectious as long as four days before they exhibit symptoms.
“Because of the high likelihood of infection, it is normally recommended that children stay home until the end of the infectious period, which is currently March 7, 2024,” the letter reads, going on to note that up to 90% of people “without immunity” (that is to say, unvaccinated) will catch the disease if exposed.
The obvious next step would be to remind parents how easily measles spreads. It can live in the air for hours after an infected child has been in a room, even a large one like a cafeteria or library. As a result, every single child at that school can be considered exposed. While fully vaccinated students might escape infection, most unvaccinated Manatee Bay students have a very high likelihood of coming down with measles. They should behave as if they are already infected — and that starts with staying home. Not crawling around in the playroom. Not fidgeting in a church pew. And not, for heaven’s sake, returning to school every day to pull another ticket in the infectious disease lottery.
The letter should have said: Keep your kids home.
Instead, here’s what Ladapo had to say:
“However, due to the high immunity rate in the community, as well as the burden on families and educational cost of healthy children missing school, DOH is deferring to parents or guardians to make decisions about school attendance.”
That letter doesn’t tell them that Broward County’s immunization rate — 91.7% of eligible kindergartners — falls short of the 95% considered necessary for a community to claim herd immunity.
AT ANY LEVEL, the immune rate in the community won’t protect other unvaccinated people these children encounter who are at risk of infection — including infants and people who can’t be vaccinated due to compromised immune systems. The letter also circumvents the reality that parents of unvaccinated children are already ignoring science — and have no idea what it’s like to live in a community gripped by fear of a dangerous illness, because measles was effectively eradicated before they were born.
They aren’t likely to connect these dots on their own. And while they may claim the right to make this decision for their children, they certainly shouldn’t be making it for other families.
“This is not a parental rights issue,” Dr. Scott Rivkees, who was surgeon general before Ladapo, told Health News Florida. “It’s about protecting fellow classmates, teachers and members of the community against measles, which is a very serious and very transmissible illness.”
As Florida’s top medical official, Ladapo should be spreading this message. Even if he’s a COVID denier, he should be aware of the massive body of evidence proving that childhood vaccinations are safe and effective. He should be pushing vaccination, exposing the fictitious link between childhood immunization and autism and advocating to close the loopholes that let Florida families send unvaccinated children to school with no good excuse.
Instead, Ladapo is gambling with the health of children, using the students at Manatee Bay Elementary as his ante. If he’s wrong, this could put at least one community at widespread risk over the next few weeks.
That’s not leadership. It’s not medicine. It sounds dangerously close to malpractice.
