UTMB Professor Warns of Danger of Ending Vaccine Mandates for School Children

FROM SCIENCE Magazine

The State of Florida has announced plans to end the requirement for childhood vaccinations for school-aged children. Health officials, epidemiologists, and vaccine researchers alike roundly condemned the move, which will require approvals by Florida’s Department of Health and the state legislature. 

 Dr. Scott Weaver, a UTMB virologist and vaccine researcher and the GNL’s Scientific Director, stated in an interview with Science senior correspondent Jon Cohen that this move is “very dangerous for public health.”

 Studies have shown that vaccine mandates for school enrollment historically increase the uptake of the vaccines and reduce the incidence of disease.

 Weaver notes that the measles outbreaks in the U.S. this year were in “pretty small, rural communities,” and fears a drop in vaccination rates in Florida could lead to a bigger crisis. “There are plenty of pockets of susceptible people in the country, and a big outbreak in Florida is going to seed them all,” he says. “It could be catastrophic for public health until people recognize the folly of this kind of a policy.”

See the entire article here.