Florida has become a very weird state. There’s hardly a conspiracy theory that Governor Ron DeSantis is not championing, especially when the subject is public health. DeSantis hired Dr. Joseph Ladapo as the state’s surgeon general, putting the lives of Floridians at risk.
Dr. Ladapo doesn’t believe in vaccinations. Disregarding science, he has sought to make all vaccines a matter of choice, not the protection of public health. Thus, no matter what other medical professionals may say, Dr. Ladapo wants to ban all vaccines mandates.
It’s an odd time to take a stand against vaccinations. Florida is experiencing an uptick in measles cases: As July 2026, Florida has reported 154 confirmed measles cases. Florida ranks among the states with the highest measles case counts in the country this year.
Nationally, the CDC reports 2,371 confirmed measles cases in the U.S. so far in 2026—the highest annual total in more than 30 years.
Now Florida’s state attorney general has threatened to withhold public funding from Catholic schools unless they allow their students to opt out of vaccines.
Florida’s attorney general has threatened to pull funding from Catholic schools unless they allow their students to opt out of vaccine requirements.
James Uthmeier, the attorney general, revealed on X that he had sent a letter to the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops (FCCB) expressing concern that schools within the faith may refuse to grant religious exemptions for vaccinations for the upcoming school year.
The letter, which was sent on July 31, is the latest in a series of pushes by lawmakers to change Florida’s vaccine mandates.
According to Uthmeier, at least one diocese appears to have “embraced” a position raised by the National Catholic Bioethics Center that the schools cannot offer exemptions on religious grounds because the Catholic Church does not teach that use of vaccinations produced in cell lines derived from the tissue of an aborted fetus is “intrinsically evil.”
Uthmeier, a Catholic himself, says that such a position is “concerning” as state law requires public and private schools to offer exemptions if parents have religious objections.
“I therefore urge Catholic schools to comply with Florida law and grant religious exemptions to school vaccine policies,” Uthmeier wrote. “Failure to comply could jeopardize eligibility for state educational scholarship programs.”
The Archdiocese of Miami says that over 95 percent of students attending the city’s Catholic schools are on some kind of state scholarship, according to The Miami Herald. Many receive around $6,500 with which to pay for their tuition.
Uthmeier has demanded an answer to his letter by August 7.
Michele Taylor, a spokesperson for the FCCB, told CBS News that the conference is reviewing the letter and will respond to the attorney general.
“Be assured, Florida’s Catholic schools are operating in accord with the law and Church teaching,” Taylor said.
Under state law, students attending both public and private schools must be vaccinated against diseases including polio, chickenpox and measles. Schools, including Catholic institutions, do permit medical exemptions from vaccines with a valid doctor’s note.
Vaccination mandates have increasingly come under attack in Florida, with Joseph Ladapo, the state’s surgeon general, likening the mandates to “slavery” late last year.
“Who am I to tell you what your child should put in your body?” he said. “I don’t have that right. Your body is a gift from God.”
Ladapo also pledged to end “every last one” of the mandates.
However, experts slammed his claims, with Democratic state Representative Anna Eskamani branding the plans a “public health disaster in the making.”
The Florida Education Association also said that reducing vaccinations puts “children’s health and education at risk.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Um, why should Florida be funding Catholic Schools? The Catholic Church is one of the richest organizations on earth – they should fund their own schools. Why should they be funding any religious schools for that matter?
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Florida offers vouchers to every kind of school, including religious schools.
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I suppose Florida is at least consistent in its wackiness. If public schools have to accept unvaccinated students, then voucher schools should have to accept them too.
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What a shame that evolution is such a slow process!
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It has been about 50 years since I read Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock. When I read of science denial and wacky perceptions of reality, I think of what he suggests in that book about the pace of technological change and the impact on society it has.
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And I think of Jacque Ellul’s book “On Technology,” in which he argued that technology moves forward whether we like it or not. As bipartisan majorities oppose data centers and AI, this proposition will be tested.
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a good point. The technology of Mrna vaccines saved many lives, and people are voting with their arms, offering to get vaccines for pneumonia, shingles, etc. political leaders are trying to solidify support from a small minority of those who do not trust these vaccines, and they are trying to find issues to separate their voters from the reality of their own grifting.
As for data centers, it will be interesting to see if there is real pushback that changes the trajectory of data collection in a world where we think that is important.
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Great point. Ellul was indeed prescient. He warned us that propaganda only works when we don’t know it is working.
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