Florida Lawmakers Push Back on Mandates With Medical Freedom Act

The bill would strengthen vaccine choice, enforce non-discrimination protections, guarantee informed consent, and make ivermectin available over the counter.

Florida lawmakers are giving parents the ultimate vaccine choice toolkit.

On Tuesday, the Senate passed Senate Bill 1756, also known as the Medical Freedom Act.

Under the bill, sponsored by Senator Clay Yarborough (R-Jacksonville), doctors and nurses must provide parents with clear information on every vaccine’s benefits, risks, safety, and efficacy before shots are given. If a child is scheduled for multiple vaccines, the doctor must discuss the timing options with the parents before administering any shots. The law also cracks down on Big Pharma incentives, banning payments to doctors for injecting patients with vaccines.

The bill also provides parents with a new conscience-based exemption from vaccines in schools, preschools, and day care—in addition to Florida’s religious and medical exemptions. The Department of Health will post the exemption form online for easy access.

This contrasts sharply with states like New York, where even religious exemptions are banned. Last year, the American Academy of Pediatrics urged all states and institutions to eliminate all non-medical exemptions.

Florida is also doubling down on individual choice: the law makes permanent the state’s ban on discrimination over mRNA vaccine status and clarifies that no one can be forced to get vaccinated—even during public health “emergencies.”

And in a move that’s sure to get attention, the bill lets pharmacists dispense ivermectin over the counter to anyone 18 or older. Before dispensing, pharmacists must provide written instructions on its proper use and follow-up care. Both pharmacists and doctors are protected from legal liability if they follow the rules in good faith.

The provisions of the bill sparked debate, even among some Republicans. Much of the attention focused on the section allowing ivermectin to be sold over the counter, an idea that has been gaining traction in several states.

Ivermectin is hardly an obscure drug. It has been used in humans for decades and has an extraordinary safety record. In 2015, the discovery of ivermectin earned a Nobel Prize in Medicine, and the World Health Organization lists it as an essential medication. One major review concluded the drug is so “astonishingly safe” that it can be administered in mass treatment programs by non-medical personnel.

Researchers are also studying new potential uses. Preclinical studies have found that ivermectin can trigger programmed cell death in cancer cells and inhibit tumor growth and metastasis in animal models of breast, ovarian, and colorectal cancers. The evidence is significant enough that the federal government’s leading cancer research agency is funding further investigation.

Yet during the COVID-19 pandemic, ivermectin became one of the most controversial drugs in America after physicians like Dr. Simone Gold recommended it for early treatment. Dr. Gold and others who promoted the drug faced media smear campaigns and discipline from state medical boards.

It had nothing to do with safety. Under federal law, emergency use authorization for experimental medical products is allowed only when no adequate alternatives exist. If drugs like ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine had been formally recognized as viable treatments, the legal rationale for the rapid authorization of experimental mRNA vaccines would not have been justified.

But the tide may be turning. In addition to Florida, Arkansas joined Tennessee last year in allowing over-the-counter access to the drug, and similar legislation is advancing in Georgia and Alabama. Lawmakers are increasingly asking why decades-old medications with long safety records remain tightly restricted while newer and far more expensive drugs face fewer barriers.

In June 2025, America’s Frontline Doctors filed new citizen petitions with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration seeking to make ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine available over the counter. The petitions were joined by physicians including Dana Granberg‑Nill, Bryan Atkinson, Pierre Kory, Brian Tyson, Peterson Pierre, Robin Armstrong, Geoff Mitchell, and Lynn Fynn—doctors who say they have spent the past five years watching patients denied treatments for reasons that had little to do with medicine.