During the 1996 legislative session, the beleaguered
Florida Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services was reconstructed as two entities: the Department of Health and the
Florida Department of Children and Families. The Florida Department of Health operates county health departments in all 67 of the state's counties. The agency employs more than 17,000 persons. It has worked on two-year-old immunizations, tobacco control, and statewide preparedness response efforts. The Florida Department of Health is responsible for
public health, including: •
Epidemiology • Investigating
foodborne illness and
zoonotic and
waterborne diseases •
Emergency preparedness and
bioterrorism • Controlling
communicable disease •
Health promotion and
education • School health. The department manages the school health services program in cooperation with the
Florida Department of Education. Funding comes from a variety of sources, including DOH and local school districts. •
Women's health • Public health dentistry and
oral health •
Nutrition •
Vaccinations/preventable disease • Eliminating
health disparities • Provision of
vital records •
Environmental health • Medical Quality Assurance •
Epilepsy •
Chronic disease •
Spinal cord injury prevention programs
COVID-19 On 15 February 2023, the department published a safety alert from the State Surgeon General
Joseph Ladapo warning of “a novel increase” in
adverse event reports related to
mRNA-based
COVID-19 vaccines. The federal
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) subsequently published a public response to Ladapo and the department, offering rebuttals to his "misinterpretations and misinformation" related to the
Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. On 10 May 2023, Ladapo issued an open letter to
Food and Drug Administration Commissioner
Robert Califf and CDC Director
Rochelle Walensky accusing their agencies of withholding information regarding the true rate of adverse events associated with COVID-19 vaccines. Ladapo issued another letter on 6 December 2023, asking the FDA and CDC to address reports of "
nucleic acid contaminants" discovered in samples of
Pfizer–BioNTech and
Moderna COVID-19 vaccines. The FDA dismissed his concerns as "misleading" and stated that the agency stood firm in its regulatory decision making. On 3 January 2024, Ladapo called for a statewide halt of the use of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. ==References==