With Mandates Easing Across the U.S., Ohio Debates its Own Future

Staying ahead of disease has become one of the defining challenges of modern medicine. Preventive strategies not only protect public health but also shape the quality and longevity of our lives.

 

There are states around the country that are putting an end to vaccine mandates. Florida is now in the process of ending school vaccine mandates for any age group. 

 

Florida Governor DeSantis has recently assured that they would still keep some vaccines in place unless lawmakers were to extend it to more serious diseases that include measles, mumps, polio and tetanus.

 

Florida is not the only state to do this, however. 17  states allow personal belief exemptions for vaccination, along with religion and medical exemptions.  

 

While Florida and other states experiment with easing mandates, Ohio has maintained stricter vaccination policies, but the debate is gaining local attention. 

 

Ohio vaccination mandates are for a plethora of diseases such as measles, Hepatitis A, and Rotavirus. The current vaccination rates are overall at about 85.4% for the 2024-2025 school year. 

“Once mandates were put in place and low income households were able to get their children vaccinated, it brought vaccine rates up to 95%. Which, especially for something like measles, is the level we need for something called herd immunity,” said Tara Smith, professor of epidemiology at Kent State University. 

Herd immunity is when there are enough people protected from a disease, so it no longer spread easily. 

 

“So, when those levels drop off, like we have seen in the past five years, there are ones that will reemerge and cause those large epidemics,” Smith said. 

 

Smith says misconceptions are to blame for why vaccine mandates are being rescinded and vaccine rates are dropping. 

“There’s this idea that there are a lot of side effects associated with vaccines, and really, there are not. The most common issues with vaccinations are simply pain at the injection site, but there are all these rumors that head out like autism comes from the MMR vaccine,” Smith said. “This has been completely disproven. The doctor who initially put that idea out into the public was found to be using fraudulent data for that. He lost his medical license. All of these things happen, but these ideas are still out in the public, and they still scare people. There’s a lot of fear mongering about these vaccines.”

 

“It is hard to counter the fear and miscommunication that is out there. I mean, you have social media. If you are ever on Facebook and you click on one anti-vaccine post, Facebook will show you more anti-vaccine posts. So, you are being shown the rabbit hole to go down. And understandably, it makes a lot of new parents very fearful,” Smith continued. 

While no legislation to dismantle vaccine mandates has emerged recently in Ohio, medical professionals here are watching Florida closely. 

 

Tracy Gidden, a pediatrics nurse and lecturer at Kent State University, says she’s heard increasing concern from parents and patients around vaccine policy and transparency.

 

According to her, “They want to make it a choice and have the parents be able to say, ‘Let’s spread them out.’ A lot of parents weren’t gettingthe answers they needed, so they started looking at everything that was going on with their children and asking ‘why’.”

 

From Gidden’s point of view, the trend towards voluntary vaccination partly comes from what she describes as frustration with the medical system: “People are tired of the medical model right now. They are doing their own research, asking a lot of good questions, and demanding transparency.”

 

She says that forcing vaccination removes agency and describes the argument as not a pro-vaccine or anti-vaccine issue, but one about autonomy, “The argument is about being able to make a choice for yourself. Medical choices should be your own. Nobody should be telling you what is right for your body.”

 

If Ohio lawmakers or health-policy leaders consider revisiting vaccine mandates, the after effects are still unknown. According to the American Medical Association, the rollbacks could undermine public health progress and put communities at risk for the diseases. 

 

Experts like Tara Smith stress that high vaccination rates are critical for maintaining herd immunity and preventing outbreaks of diseases such as measles and mumps. At the same time, medical professionals like Tracy Gidden are putting an emphasis on the importance of transparency and open dialogue, arguing that families should have the ability to make informed decisions about their children’s healthcare. 

 

And as Ohio watches closely, families and policy makers will need to weigh the benefits of high vaccination coverage against the push for personal choice.