Manatee Bay Elementary School — Site of Documented Measles Outbreak
A cartoonish, spot-covered character calling himself Mr. Measles showed up this week to cheer on lowered vaccination rates and more infections, a tongue-in-cheek stunt timed to a Florida Department of Health meeting in Lake Mary where state officials discussed dropping mandated student vaccines for four diseases. The campaign began in Washington, D.C., and the character appeared in Lake Mary this week.
The Mr. Measles character and the advertising pushing him statewide are funded by Informed Consumer, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit that created the spotty mascot to draw attention to falling childhood immunization rates and the public health risks that come with them, according to the Orlando Sentinel. The Orlando Sentinel first detailed the campaign and the mascot’s planned appearance at the Lake Mary meeting; the Daytona Beach News-Journal later reported that measles is a once-eliminated, highly contagious disease now resurging across the country.
What the Lake Mary Hearing Actually Covered
The meeting that drew the satirical mascot’s attention was a public rule hearing the Florida Department of Health held on Thursday in Lake Mary to review proposed revisions to Rule 64D-3.046, which would repeal school and child-care entrance requirements for four vaccines: Hepatitis B, varicella, Haemophilus influenzae type b, and pneumococcal conjugate, according to the Florida Administrative Register. Those four vaccines are governed by administrative agency rule rather than state statute, which means Florida’s mandatory measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine requirement remains untouched because it is written into state law separately, under Section 1003.22, as reported by WUSF…