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A girl is inoculated against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) during a vaccination event hosted by Miami-Dade County and Miami Heat, at FTX Arena in Miami, Florida, USA, on August 5, 2021.
Florida seeks to lift vaccine mandate
On Sept. 4 Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo announced plans to repeal childhood vaccine mandates in the state’s public schools. Ladapo likened mandates to “slavery” while Governor Ron DeSantis emphasized the importance of protecting medical freedom.
The decision makes Florida the first state in 45 years to seek to make childhood vaccines optional, and has serious implications for public health and states’ rights. Advocates cheer it as a triumph for medical freedom and parental rights, while opponents decry it as a step back in the fight against infectious disease – and, possibly, a risk to the health of the nation.
Vaccine mandates date back decades
The state of Massachusetts implemented the first US vaccination requirements for smallpox in the 1850s, and by 1900, nearly half of the states had done the same. The federal government enacted its first Childhood Immunization Initiative in the 1960s after a major measles outbreak, recommending a common vaccine schedule, and President Bill Clinton implemented another in 1993 to combat polio, mumps, measles, whooping cough, and diphtheria.
Since 1980, all US states have all had vaccine mandates for public schools, but have the right to grant medical exemptions for students who are allergic, immunocompromised or otherwise cannot tolerate vaccines, as well as non medical exemptions on religious or philosophical grounds. In the 2024-2025 school year, 3.6% of students nationwide had an exemption for at least one vaccine, nearly double the rate in 2021-2022. Idaho and Alaska had the highest rates of exemptions, 15.4%, and 9.4%, respectively, mostly for non-medical reasons.
What is Florida planning?
The Florida Department of Health will end the vaccine mandate for hepatitis B, chickenpox, Hib influenza and pneumococcal diseases such as meningitis, beginning 90 days from now. The new rules may not take effect this school year at all, however, because changes to state vaccine mandates require legislative amendment. Florida’s Democratic minority has vowed to fight them; and even if they do pass, there could still be lawsuits from parents, teachers, teachers unions, and vaccine advocates.
Medical freedom, states rights and public health
Florida’s mandate repeal revives the question of how far can states push policies that can impact citizens of other states. Doctors caution that Florida’s status as a major tourist destination could put at risk immunocompromised travelers or those whose vaccines are not up to date. These travelers could also bring illness back home, potentially infecting other vulnerable populations.
Defenders of Florida’s move, however, say this isn’t just an issue of states’ rights, but of personal freedom and parental rights. Ladapo admitted that he had not studied the impact of the repeal on the spread of disease, but said that “It’s an issue of right and wrong,” saying earlier, “Who am I as a man standing here now to tell you what you should put in your body?” President Donald Trump countered Friday, however, that “you have some vaccines that are so amazing, the polio vaccine,” that “should be used; otherwise, some people are going to catch it, and they endanger other people.”
Health as an ideological divide
The public is split on changes to federal vaccine policy, largely along partisan lines. A recent poll by KFF about the federal reduction in the availability of COVID vaccines found two in ten Americans, including 41% of Republicans, think these changes will make people safer, while about one-third of respondents including most Democrats (62%) and four in ten independents (41%) say they will make people less safe.
State legislation could similarly divide along ideological lines. The Democratic governors of California, Oregon, and Washington have formed the West Coast Health Alliance to “uphold scientific standards” in defiance of MAHA policy. Similarly, the blue-leaning states of Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania are looking at working together on immunization policy and guidance that differs from MAHA criticism of vaccines.
Why life sciences are critical to national security
Listen: What if the next virus isn’t natural, but deliberately engineered and used as a weapon? As geopolitical tensions rise and biological threats become more complex, health security and life sciences are emerging as critical pillars of national defense.
In the premiere episode of “The Ripple Effect: Investing in Life Sciences”, host Dan Riskin is joined by two leading voices at the intersection of biotechnology and defense, Dawn Meyerriecks, former CIA Deputy Director for Science and Technology and current member of the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology, and Jason Kelly, co-founder and CEO of Ginkgo Bioworks. Together, they explore the dual-use nature of biotechnology and the urgent need for international oversight, genetic attribution standards, and robust viral surveillance. From pandemic preparedness and fragile supply chains to AI-driven lab automation and airport biosurveillance, their conversation highlights how life science innovation strengthens national resilience and strategic defense.
This timely conversation follows the June 25th, 2025 Hague Summit Declaration, where NATO allies pledged to invest 5% of GDP in defense by 2035—including up to 1.5% on resilience and innovation to safeguard critical infrastructure, civil preparedness, networks, and the defense industrial base. This limited series, produced by GZERO’s Blue Circle Studios in partnership with Novartis, examines how life science innovation plays a vital role in fulfilling that commitment.
Graphic Truth: National Institutes for Health funding in peril
The Trump administration wants to slash the budget of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the US’ main medical research institution, by 40% for the next fiscal year.
The move would bring funding levels back to those of the early 1990s, before a huge post-Cold War push to increase non-military R&D nearly doubled the NIH budget.
The current, Trump-appointed NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya reaffirmed his agency’s commitment to addressing “the health needs of all Americans” before the senate on Tuesday. At the same time, more than 300 current and recently terminated NIH employees have accused the director of suspending federal grant funding for ideological reasons.
Here’s a look at how Trump’s proposed cuts stack up against NIH funding over the past 30 years.
The logo for Isomorphic Labs is displayed on a tablet in this illustration.
Meet Isomorphic Labs, the Google spinoff that aims to cure you
In 2024, Demis Hassabis won a Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work in predicting protein structures through his company, Isomorphic Labs. The lab, which broke off from Google's DeepMind in 2021, raised $600 million from investors in a new funding round led by Thrive Capital on Monday. The company did not disclose a valuation.
Isomorphic uses artificial intelligence to discover new drugs through its AlphaFold technology, which was at the center of Hassabis’s Nobel win last year. Ultimately, Hassabis wants to do something that’s not exactly simple: He’s vowed to “solve all disease with the help of AI.”
Isomorphic is already working with big pharmaceutical companies such as Eli Lilly and Novartis, inking deals with the two drugmakers last year worth $3 billion. It plans to use the new money to improve its AI tools and to move its drugs toward clinical testing.Tulsi Gabbard hugs President Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 12, 2025.
Gabbard and RFK Jr. confirmed by US Senate
On Thursday, the Senate voted to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Health and Human Services Secretary. The vote also went along party lines, 52-48, with McConnell also voting with Democrats against Kennedy.
RFK Jr., like Gabbard, has set off alarm bells. Ian Bremmer, founder and president of Eurasia Group, says Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again movement is “set to shake up health policy” in the US. MAHA, says Bremmer, is “a worldview that blends concerns about corporate influence on healthcare with skepticism towards mainstream medicine.” It’s also made up, notes Bremmer, of wellness culture, vaccine hesitancy, alternative medicine, and deep state conspiracy – and it crosses ideological divides. It is, in a word, messy, and will almost certainly do what its proponents promise: upset the status quo on health policy in the US.Graphic Truth: How much booze do Americans and Canadians drink?
US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy is sounding the alarm that drinking alcohol is linked to cancer, and he’s calling for a rethink on the federal government’s guideline for how much alcohol is safe to drink. Right now, US government guidelines recommend that men consume no more than two drinks per day, and women have no more than one.
His call comes at the right time for Dry January when many choose to forego alcohol and focus on New Year’s resolutions. But the effort comes at the wrong time for the restaurant industry, which depends on alcohol sales to make a profit, especially as food and labor costs rise, and as inflation-weary diners are cutting back on eating out.
But consumers may already be heeding his warning. According to the WHO and the CIA’s Factbook, both Canadians and Americans have cut back on their drinking since booze consumption surged during the pandemic.
Vice President Kamala Harris waves to members of the media as she boards Air Force Two at Sky Harbor in Phoenix on Oct. 11, 2024.
Harris challenges Trump on his health: “Your turn”
Vice President Kamala Harris released her medical records this weekend, confirming she is in “excellent health” and “possesses the physical and mental resiliency” necessary for the presidency. Harris then accused Republican rival Donald Trump of withholding his records, claiming he “doesn’t want the American people to see whether or not he’s fit” for office.
Critics have raised concerns over Trump’s mental health – citing erratic statements at campaign rallies – and ability to serve a full term, but his campaign quickly pushed back on Harris’ challenge, quoting Trump’s doctor as saying he’s in “perfect and excellent health.” They also took aim at Harris, claiming she “does not have the stamina” to match Trump’s “busy and active campaign schedule.” Still, Trump has not released his full medical record.
Harris’ campaign reportedly hopes the release of her health information will also contrast with Trump’s comparative lack of transparency. While the vice president is ahead in national polls, battleground states are still too close to call, and her campaign is looking for any edge it can find – including a doctor’s note.A doctor checks the progress of a patient with tuberculosis at the Beijing Chest Hospital March 31, 2009. Health officials gathered in Beijing on Wednesday warned against deadly drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis, which are spreading fastest in developing countries that lack the infrastructure to tackle the disease.
Please cough for the AI
What if an artificial intelligence stored on your phone could listen and hear how sick you are? Google is training a bioacoustic AI model called Health Acoustic Representations with 300 million snippets of audio collected from around the world — of people sneezing, coughing, and breathing. The goal? To spot tuberculosis early and treat it.
A whopping 1.3 million people died of tuberculosis in 2022 alone, according to the World Health Organization, and 10.6 million fell ill with the disease. “TB is a treatable disease, but every year millions of cases go undiagnosed — often because people don’t have convenient access to healthcare services,” Google’s Shravya Shetty wrote in a blog post. “Improving diagnosis is critical to eradicating TB, and AI can play an important role in improving detection and helping make care more accessible and affordable for people around the world.”
Google is focused first on preventing tuberculosis in India and is partnering with an Indian company called Salcit Technologies, whose own AI app Swaasa is being used by healthcare providers on the subcontinent. Swaasa will integrate Google’s model to improve its own detection of the disease.