ORLANDO, Fla. – Florida’s top health official called the measles vaccine “effective” Friday, but stopped short of imploring people to get inoculated against the disease.
Dr. Joseph Ladapo was in Orlando Friday for an event focused on mental health and kids.
Toward the end of the event--after asking about the surgeon general’s recommendation against the use of antipsychotic drugs to treat children -- News 6 took an opportunity to ask him about the rise in measles cases.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) put out new data Friday, showing that measles cases in the United States have reached a 35-year-high.
According to Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the number of measles cases in Florida spiked from seven in 2025 to 141 in 2026.
News 6’s Mike Valente asked Ladapo what he would say to families about the measles vaccine.
“Everyone’s gotta get the vaccine,” Ladapo said with a smirk.
Ladapo then proceeded to reference a cluster of cases in Collier County, noting that many of them were associated with a private Catholic university, Ave Maria University.
“The measles vaccine is developed with cells that are progeny from an aborted fetus,” Ladapo said. “And whether there is a connection between the fact that some of the students at this university chose not to receive that vaccine and it happens to be a vaccine that is related to the practice of abortion, I’m not sure.”
On an American Academy of Pediatrics’ webpage addressing the claim that vaccines contain fetal cells, the organization called it false. You can see that page HERE.
“Some vaccines involve growing viruses in human cell cultures originally developed from two aborted fetuses in the 1960s,” the website’s page reads. “These cell lines are still going, so no new aborted fetuses are ever needed. Purification processes filter the vaccine during production, and no fetal tissue remains.”
According to data from the Florida Department of Health, there have been 155 measles cases in Florida since the start of the year, with three in Orange County and one in Osceola County.
Ladapo said the measles vaccine is effective, but stopped short of imploring people to get inoculated.
“The measles vaccine happens to be an effective vaccine against measles,” Ladapo said. “I think that people should always be able to make decisions about what they put into their body in the absence of coercion.”