As Florida prepares for a special legislative session in the coming weeks, families like mine are watching with deep concern. Lawmakers are now being asked to reconsider a proposal to expand non-medical exemptions from school vaccination requirements. For families like ours, this discussion is not abstract or political. It’s very personal and can be life-threatening.
My young son, Remy, is a leukemia survivor. Diagnosed when she was 2 years old, chemotherapy weakened her immune system, so everyday infections can quickly become severe. Community immunity is more than just a public health concept for our family. This protection allows our children to attend school, spend time with others, and experience some degree of normal childhood.
During the toughest stages of Remy’s treatment, that reality became inevitable. We lived almost in isolation. We limited our contact with others, relied on grocery deliveries, sanitized packages and gifts, and avoided gatherings with friends and relatives. The infection would not have been a minor setback. It could have been devastating. When your child is immunocompromised, every outing becomes a calculated risk and every protection counts.
That’s why vaccination requirements for schools and child care centers are so important for families like ours. These create a reliable baseline of protection in the environments that children spend the most time with. During chemotherapy, I relied on other parents and complete strangers to do their part to protect my son. Knowing that a particular space maintains higher vaccination standards does not guarantee safety, but it does significantly improve the odds against dangerous infections.
This conversation often leads to parental choices, and as a parent myself, I understand why. As parents, we should be empowered to ask questions and make informed and thoughtful decisions on behalf of our children. I respect my family’s careful and loving approach to health decisions. At the same time, the safety of a shared environment depends on more than individual intentions. Children with compromised immune systems rely on the collective protection of their classrooms and communities to stay healthy.
My wife is a teacher, so that adds to the worry. She interacts with students every day, and increased exposure at school can have an impact at home. Policies framed as protecting the freedom of some families can undermine the safety and freedom of others. True freedom should not come at the expense of other children’s well-being.
Florida already has a medical exemption system for children who really cannot be vaccinated. Expanding non-medical exemptions undermines the very protections that medically vulnerable children rely on. When safety measures are loosened, children who have the least capacity for risk are the first to feel the effects.
This perspective is not unique to families like mine. Floridians understand this, too, with recent polls showing that eight in 10 voters across all party lines, regions, and backgrounds support keeping current school vaccine precautions in place. Parents want protection for their children and stability in their classrooms, workplaces, and communities. And we’ve felt it firsthand in our own communities. So many people rallied around Remy during his treatment and continue to rally around us today to help him live as normal a life as possible. That support only strengthened my belief that protecting each other is a shared responsibility.
With measles spreading in Florida’s communities, now is not the time to roll back the safeguards that have kept schools and child care centers safe for decades. Risk is no longer hypothetical. As lawmakers prepare for a special legislative session, Florida must protect vaccine safeguards for children, who most depend on their communities to stay healthy.
Tim Heberlein is a Tampa-based father of a son who survived leukemia.
