Last year’s percentage of vaccinated children was below herd immunity levels.
By Kara Newhouse and Alice Herman/Suncoast Searchlight
Original Air Date: August 15, 2025
Host: Sarasota schools are back in session this week. For many families, that brings the excitement of new teachers, classmates and activities. But this year it also brings into focus a critical threat to public health: plummeting kindergarten vaccination rates. Kara Newhouse with Suncoast Searchlight reports.
KN: At Sarasota County public schools, about 82% of kindergarteners were fully immunized against measles last academic year. That’s well below the level required for herd immunity. And it’s roughly the same rate as in Gaines County, Texas, the epicenter of a measles outbreak that has killed two children and infected hundreds this year.
The measles, mumps and rubella vaccine—better known as MMR—is one several childhood immunizations typically required for kindergarteners in Florida. However, a small but growing number of parents are using religious exemptions to opt their children out of the requirement.
Sarasota County’s kindergarten immunization rates have dropped to 80% across all vaccine types for both public and private schools. That’s their lowest point in decades.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have confirmed more than 1,350 measles cases across 40 states, including Florida, so far this year. That’s a nearly fivefold increase from last year.
Yet the medical professionals best suited to sound the alarm are largely silent. Doctors and public health leaders are fearful of backlash from state officials and activists who have cast doubt on established science.
Suncoast Searchlight contacted more than 20 pediatricians for this story. Only one agreed to speak on the record.
Dr. Lisa Gonzalez-Abello is a pediatrician and chief medical officer for CenterPlace Health. She said that some parents of her patients believe they are less vulnerable to infectious diseases because they homeschool or don’t travel outside the area.
Lisa Gonzalez-Abello, pediatrician and chief medical officer for CenterPlace Health (right), and Eduardo Ramos, RN, load vaccinations into a refrigerated storage container at the clinic in August. Photo: Emily Le Coz, Suncoast Searchlight
Lisa Gonzalez-Abello: People are traveling here constantly from all over. As you may or may not know, sometimes at the beginning of the disease, you may have it without having so many symptoms, and you are contagious. What people are thinking is a protection or a low risk is not really a low risk.
KN: Other doctors declined to speak to Suncoast Searchlight, citing fears of professional risks and threats from anti-vaccine activists.
The silence extends beyond individual doctors. Sarasota Memorial’s physician group declined to state outright that the MMR vaccine is safe and effective.
Instead of an interview, the chief medical officer for First Physicians Group of Sarasota Memorial Health Care System sent Searchlight an email statement. In it, Jack Rodman said “Vaccination decisions are very personal, and made between parents, patients and their physicians.”
Fearing harassment and retaliation, some physicians won’t speak out publicly in support of vaccines. Photo: Ed Us via Unsplash
The statement also said that First Physicians Group doctors provide guidance based on medical and public health organizations’ recommendations.
Searchlight sent a subsequent email asking if Rodman—or First Physicians Group—would affirm that the MMR vaccine is safe and effective. Rodman’s response did not answer the question but repeated the “personal choice” framing.
The Sarasota County Health Department also declined to grant an interview. A written response to Searchlight did not offer any direct endorsement of childhood vaccination.
Epidemiologists, public health experts and national medical groups agree: science supports vaccines as a life-saving tool against disease.
A sign advertising back-to-school vaccinations outside the Sarasota County Health and Human Services building in downtown Sarasota. Photo: Kara Newhouse, Suncoast Searchlight
Karen Liller is the chair of the Department of Community Health Sciences at University of South Florida.
Karen Liller: Vaccines are one of the greatest public health achievements. One of the greatest things that’s happened in public health—clean water, vaccines, things like that. So I can’t be more of a proponent for them.
KN: But viral misinformation and disinformation have fueled vaccine hesitancy.
During the COVID-19 lockdowns, some content creators grew their followings by rejecting medical consensus and propelled vaccine skepticism into the mainstream.
In Sarasota, local residents who distrusted health authorities began protesting Sarasota County Public Hospital Board meetings. In 2022, these activists elected three self-proclaimed “Health Freedom” candidates to the nine-member board. One of the candidates was a doctor who prescribed scientifically unsupported treatments for COVID-19.
Misinformation has fueled vaccine hesitancy, driving down immunization rates in places like Sarasota. Photo: Mufid Majnun via Unsplash
Those skeptics have found champions in high-ranking health officials, including Florida’s surgeon general Joseph Ladapo and the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Both have elevated false claims about vaccine safety.
Movement vigilantes have gone even further.
In 2023, staff at Sarasota Memorial Hospital received a wave of death threats after the hospital released a report that said its COVID-19 patients fared better than in most other Florida hospitals.
For Suncoast Searchlight, I’m Kara Newhouse. This report was produced jointly with Alice Herman. To read the full article, go to suncoastsearchlight.org/sarasota-kindergarten-vaccine-rates-plummet.
This story was produced by Suncoast Searchlight, a nonprofit newsroom of the Community News Collaborative serving Sarasota, Manatee, and DeSoto counties. Learn more at suncoastsearchlight.org.
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