On August 22, 2024, the FDA approved and authorized updated mRNA COVID-19 vaccines to better protect against currently circulating variants for people 12 and older and provided emergency use authorization for children 6 months to 11 years old. 

Last week the CDC released its recommendation that everyone six months and older get an updated COVID-19 vaccine to protect against the potentially serious outcomes of COVID-19 illness this fall and winter.

Your Florida Academy of Family Physicians (FAFP) Board of Directors met in Orlando last Friday, April 14, one day after 5B300 was signed into law prohibiting abortions beyond six (6) weeks. The board discussed the disturbing trend in politics that not only attempts to legislate standards of care, but criminalizes the practice of medicine.

There are very few issues in our country that are more personal than abortion. Regardless of your stance, the Supreme Court of the United States’ (SCOTUS) impending ruling will create a great deal of consternation and confusion not only for Florida’s family physicians but all Americans.

The FAFP board of directors agreed this weekend to support the AMA, AAFP, and 50+ others national organizations in recommending COVID-19 vaccine mandates for health care workers. We family physicians (of all people) know what the right thing to do in the setting of a worsening pandemic is, the very reason we support the position.