Pediatrician and mother Andrea Frazier at the Capitol Tuesday with her one-month old son William Townsend Frazier. (Photo by Christine Sexton/Florida Phoenix)
A priority health policy for the DeSantis administration in the 2026 session got a boost Tuesday when a Senate spending panel passed legislation (SB 1756) that would make it easier for parents to not vaccinate their children.
The bill comes as the number of measles cases in Florida continues to rise and the number of children being vaccinated continues to dip.
Department of Health data show there were 64 cases of measles in the Sunshine State as of Feb. 20 this year. That’s up from eight measles cases in all of 2025 and 11 measles cases in 2024.
Meanwhile, DOH data show the number of children who have received their required school vaccines has dipped: 92.1% of 7th graders were immunized in 2025, down from 93.4% in 2024 and 96.3% in 2019.
The Senate Appropriations Committee voted 10-7 to pass SB 1756 with Republican Sens. Gayle Harrell and Tom Wright voting against the bill along with the five Democrats who serve on the committee.
Harrell, a Republican from Stuart, has been one of the most vociferous opponents of the bill, offered by Jacksonville Republican Sen. Clay Yarborough.
Children, not politics
“I think vaccination policy should not be about politics. It should be about the health of our children and protecting our children,” Harrell said.
Florida law contains a number of immunization requirements for the young and the old.
Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo made national headlines when they announced they wanted to eliminate all vaccine mandates from Florida statutes.
There are vaccine mandates for children in Florida schools and those who attend daycare for poliomyelitis, diphtheria, rubeola, rubella, pertussis, mumps, and tetanus. The state allows exemptions for valid medical reasons but also for religious reasons.
College students who reside in on-campus housing must provide documentation of vaccinations against meningococcal meningitis and hepatitis B. Again, the law contains exemptions and students who refuse the vaccines are required to sign waivers.
Florida nursing homes are required to assess residents for flu shots within five days of arriving at the facility. There is a mandate for the resident to be vaccinated or revaccinated within 60 days after admission. Again, there are exemptions for medical, religious, and philosophical beliefs.
Although the mandates affect the young and old alike, the DeSantis administration focused its efforts on eliminating vaccine requirements for children attending Florida schools.
SB 1756 doesn’t accomplish that goal.
Young children would still be required to get vaccinated before entering a Florida school or day care, but it would be easier for parents and guardians to opt out by allowing them to reject vaccinations based on their conscience, rather than the existing opt outs for medical or religious reasons only.
The risks of vaccines and no vaccines
The bill would require physicians to provide parents who choose to vaccinate their children with information about the potential risks of vaccines. But there is no requirement for physicians to provide that information to parents who opt out of vaccines.
Harrell tried unsuccessfully to amend the bill during an earlier stop in the Senate Health Policy Committee to do just that but was shot down. She didn’t offer an amendment in the Senate Appropriations Committee but repeated her belief that the information should be provided to parents who refuse vaccines for their children.
Physician and Lecanto Republican Sen. Ralph Massullo shared Harell’s sentiments, alhough unlike Harrell, Massullo voted for the bill.
His “yes” vote in the Appropriations Committee came despite claims Massullo made in the Health Policy Committee in January that he wouldn’t vote for the bill again if it weren’t changed.
Massullo repeated those assertions on Tuesday.
“First of all, I want you to know that I am pro-vaccine. I think there’s no greater medical advance that’s going to improve public health in modern history with vaccines, and I think the statistics and science bears that out,” Massullo said.
All that being said, if we’re going to have a [vaccine] mandate — which we do and you’re not changing that for our public schools — I believe that we need to be sure that we have the same information given to those individuals that want to opt out of a vaccine as they would to be able to opt into a vaccine.” he said.
The House companion measure, HB 917, has been referred to three committees but hasn’t been heard by any of them. With 17 days left in the 2026 regular session, the proposal is on thin ice.
But the Senate continues to advance the governor’s priority.
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100-plus people, 45 seconds
Yarborough’s bill was the last considered during Tuesday’s meeting and drew more than 100 people to the committee room who wanted to testify either for or against the proposal.
The demand to testify was so great that Hooper limited people’s testimony to 45 seconds. Even then, Hooper was forced to extend the meeting by 30 minutes to allow for public testimony, debate among the senators, and a vote on the measure.
Chiropractic physician Gary Kompothecras drove six hours from Sarasota to testify and complained that the 45-second time limit was “ridiculous.” He then testified that he first came to the Capitol 19 years ago to “try to get the mercury out of the vaccines.” He said two of his first three children became “disabled” after being vaccinated. He eventually had three additional children and vaccinated none of them.
“Nineteen years ago, I told you there was going to be an epidemic if we don’t get these vaccines cleaned up. What has happened in 19 years? A tremendous increase in autism, every neurological disease, diabetes, everything,” said Kompothecras, who was appointed to the Board of Chiropractic Medicine by the governor in January.
There have been extensive studies on whether vaccines cause autism, a theory stemming from a 1998 case series published in the medical journal The Lancet. It was fully retracted from the scientific record in 2010 and Andrew Wakefield, who conducted the study, lost his license to practice medicine.
‘Very lucky to be alive’
Meanwhile, meningitis survivor Jamie Schanbaum testified against the bill, sharing her story of how she arrived on a college campus young and invincible but contracted meningitis before the end of her first semester.
Her first symptom was flu-like and within 14 hours, she told the committee, she was in a lot of pain. When she went to the emergency room a nurse guessed she had contracted meningitis.
“And I’m very lucky to be alive because of the guess. I mention this because meningitis is commonly misdiagnosed and despite our modern medicine there’s very little that can be done,” Schanbaum said. “After the rush of questions the doctor there asked me where’s my mother? And in that moment I knew I was scared. Do you know what it’s like to be in that situation or to have that call as a mother and say that your daughter might not live?”
Pediatrician Andrea Frazier toted her one-year-old son, William Townsend Frazier, to the Capitol so she could testify against the bill. He’s too young to be vaccinated, but Frazier, a mother of three, said she weighed the risks and took the chance of exposing him to the public.
“I feel so strongly about this and I urge you so much, both as a medical professional and parent, please vote against this bill. You say it’s about medical freedom but there’s also the freedom of all the parents and families that are pro-vaccination that actually expanding vaccination exemptions will take away our freedom and our kids’ freedom to be able to grow up and not worry about vaccine preventable illness.”
Although most of the public testimony came from parents and physicians, the committee did hear from Florida State Hispanic Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Julio Fuentes.
Citing a Florida-specific study conducted on behalf of American Families for Vaccines, Fuentes said reducing vaccine coverage could wreak havoc on the economy.
The study shows that weakening vaccine requirements could cause economic dislocations that could reduce Florida’s gross domestic product by $9 billion, eliminate more than 64,000 jobs, and reduce state and local tax revenue by nearly $1 billion over the next decade. The study also found that weakening vaccine mandates could result in a 1% decline in visitors for fear of disease outbreaks. That could reduce tourist spending in the state by $1.3 billion annually and put nearly 7,000 tourism jobs at risk.
“Communities from Orlando to Miami to Tampa will feel that strain, so I urge you to oppose SB 1756,” Fuentes said.
But Allison Euker, who supports SB 1756, blasted the study, saying it was funded by Big Pharma.
“If you look back into that study they provide, you’ll see the characters behind that study,” she said.
Euker told the panel that 16 other states already allow parents to opt out of vaccinating their children based on conscientious objection.
“This isn’t Florida creating a risky precedent. It has broad considerations. Conscientious objections have been established nationwide for over 40 years, balancing public health with individual rights. So, I hope that you continue to have Florida be the Free State of Florida.”
Northe Saunders, president of American Families for Vaccines, refused to tell the Florida Phoenix how much his organization paid for the study but denied the report was funded by Big Pharma.