On February 22, 2024, in response to six confirmed cases of measles at a Florida elementary school, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo sent a letter “deferring to parents or guardians to make decisions about school attendance.” The letter did not advise parents of unvaccinated children to get them vaccinated or to follow the CDC-recommended 21-day quarantine period.
According to Paul Offit, a pediatric infectious diseases expert, measles is highly contagious for unvaccinated individuals - even more contagious than COVID-19 or the flu. Public health experts have criticized Ladapo’s anti-vaccine stance as contributing to the spread of measles in Florida.
The growing number of measles outbreaks across the United States in recent years has been attributed to the spread of misinformation about vaccine safety and the political backlash to COVID-19 vaccine mandates. Measles can result in serious health complications, including hospitalization, pneumonia, brain swelling leading to convulsions and intellectual disabilities, and, in unvaccinated babies, fatal neurological complications that may go undetected for years.