U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz held a press conference on school safety measures Tuesday and called for the replacement of Florida's surgeon general as the measles outbreak in South Florida continued to expand.
At a news conference, Wasserman Schultz called for the termination of Dr. Joseph Ladapo and for Gov. Ron DeSantis to replace him with a public health expert, following the surgeon general's controversial handling of the outbreak.
Ladapo told parents of unvaccinated children that it is their choice whether their students attend class — a contravention of federal guidelines calling for their mandatory exclusion.
"Surgeon General Ladapo is a misinformation super-spreader," Wasserman Schultz said during the press conference.
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Wasserman Schultz was joined by an epidemiologist, who explained the dangers of measles and how effective the vaccine is.
The Legislative Director of the Broward County Council of PTA, which is the largest child advocacy organization in the nation, also spoke at the press conference.
She emphasized the need for rigorous cleaning and sanitizing processes in the school, and praised BCPS for ensuring those measures thus far.
There were nine confirmed cases in Broward County as of Tuesday morning, according to the Florida Department of Health.
One of the latest cases was confirmed to be in a child under five years old on Saturday and allegedly occurred outside Manatee Bay Elementary School in Weston, where the previous cases had been confirmed.
216 students were absent from the school on Monday. The normal range is about 100 for a school of its size.
Broward County Public Schools Superintendent Peter Licata said Manatee Bay is 92% vaccinated. With a student enrollment of about 1,100, that means roughly 88 students have not had the MMR vaccine for measles, mumps, and rubella.
“That’s about average, it’s gonna range, windows, two or three percent different ways, when I was a principal, you had to keep it at 99, 100%, but that’s changed a little bit,” the superintendent said.
In a prior interview with NBC6, pediatric immunologist Dr. Hamadys Ale referred to level of immunization: "If 92% immunization is average for the school district, it’s not enough."
“The problem that we have seen is when there’s a drop in herd immunity, by not vaccinating all children, and this is something we have seen a trend on, the herd immunity has been declining and that is the window in which the virus can take advantage and infect the ones that are vulnerable,” said Dr. Ale, who works at Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital.
A letter from the Florida Department of Health on Wednesday clarified that 97% of students at Manatee Bay have had at least one dose of the MMR vaccine.
Health officials also said they recommend that people without history of prior infection or vaccination stay home for up to 21 days when measles is detected at a school.
