Florida plans to become the first state to end all vaccine mandates for children to attend school, including for preventable diseases such as measles, mumps, chickenpox, polio and hepatitis. On Wednesday, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo said that the vaccine requirement is “wrong and drips with disdain and slavery.” The American Medical Association responded to Florida’s plan to end vaccine mandates, saying that it would “undermine decades of public health progress.” According to the World Health Organization, vaccines have saved the lives of 154 million people globally over the past half-century, many of them infants and children.

Meanwhile, California, Oregon and Washington have announced that they’re forming a new health alliance to provide unified vaccine recommendations after Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. withdrew federal COVID vaccine recommendations for pregnant women and healthy children back in May.