TAMPA, Fla. (Hill) — Mehmet Oz, a celebrity doctor who oversees Medicaid and Medicare for the Trump administration, threw his support behind Florida’s efforts to end mandatory vaccinations at schools on Wednesday.
In an interview about “The Story with Martha McCallum,” the Fox News host agreed with staff who wanted Florida to be the first state to end vaccine requirements as a child, and asked Oz if he “recommended the same for your patients.”
Florida surgeon general announces that the state is working to end all vaccine orders
“I definitely don’t have a vaccination order,” the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) administrator told MacCallum.
“This is a decision that doctors and patients should make together,” he continued. “Parents love their children more than they can love them than anyone else, so why not try to play an active role in this?”
Oz said doctors should not “press the government to decide what to do with their vaccination schedule,” and said, “Let’s say they should be in the best interests of those before them, that’s the children and what those parents want.
Florida surgeon General Joseph Radapop announced on Wednesday that without exception, plans to end all the state’s vaccine mandates.
Vaccine requirements for Florida’s public schools and daycare facilities have been in place for decades, including shots of polio, difteria, measles, rubella, pertussis, mumps, tetanus and other infectious diseases.
Longtime vaccine skeptic Radhapo said the Florida Department of Health could remove “a dozen” vaccine mandates and the governor and state legislature would need to “remove the rest.”
The move has sparked concerns among the healthcare community. Doctors and other healthcare professionals have long supported school vaccine requirements as a way to stop spreading infections among children and their communities by contributing to the immunity of herds.
Target vaccine rates vary depending on the disease. With measles, about 95% of people need to be offset by the virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
