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The state panel that regulates Florida’s pharmacists appears poised to jump into the debate over vaccines and vaccine mandates.

The Florida Board of Pharmacy announced this week that it will have a discussion on 2025-26 Covid-19 vaccine administration as well as a rule allowing for “additional immunizations or vaccines.” 

The board’s actions comes after Gov. Ron DeSantis and state Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo announced a push to eliminate all vaccine mandates, including those required of school-aged children. Some of that push requires legislative approval but some of the mandates can be eliminated through the rule process.

The pharmacy board is scheduled to will meet virtually on Sept. 23 at 10:30 a.m. to discuss the rules. A link to the meeting is here.

The board is administratively housed in the Department of Health, which Ladapo runs.

Four of the board members’ terms have expired, although they continue to serve on the panel — Miami pharmacists Dorinda Segovia and Cristina Medina, St. Johns County pharmacist Jeenu Philip, and Tallahassee pharmacist Patty Ghazvini.

Board Chairman and Tallahassee pharmacist Jonathan Hickman, consumer member Ryan West of Tallahassee, and attorney and pharmacist Jeffrey J. Mesaros, of Orlando, serve terms that expire Oct. 31.

Unlike other medical boards whose members made political contributions to DeSantis or other Republicans, for the most part Board of Pharmacy members haven’t contributed heavily to politicians or political committees. Chair Hickman gave $1,000 to DeSantis’s re-election efforts in 2022 but he’s the only member to have done so, a Florida Phoenix review of campaign databases shows. Other members gave an occasional campaign contribution to political action committees, but nothing to the governor or Republican Party of Florida.

Pharmacists in Florida working under supervising physicians are authorized to administer Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)-approved immunizations or vaccines for adults. They can also administer vaccines that have been approved for emergency use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or those approved by the Florida Board of Pharmacy in response to an emergency declaration issued by the governor. 

Pharmacists in Florida can also administer flu shots to children aged seven or older if they work under the established protocol of a physician.

Moreover, the Board of Pharmacy Rule 64B16-27.650 allows certain pharmacists to administer Covid-19 and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccines. RSV is a virus that infects the lungs and the respiratory tract and can cause difficulties with breathing.

The Board of Medicine — which regulates physicians — is slated to meet Sept. 26 in St. Augustine. At press time, there was nothing related to vaccines on the board’s agenda but there is time allotted for “new business.”

The DeSantis administration made national headlines earlier this month when Ladapo said he’d like to eliminate all vaccine mandates from Florida statutes and rules, a move that could affect schoolchildren but also college students and even nursing home residents.

Ladapo said at the time that mandates drip “with disdain and slavery.” 

The DOH subsequently announced that it was updating its immunization requirements and forms for childcare and school admission, plus opt-out provisions.

The Florida Chapter of the American College of Physicians (FCACP) and the Florida Academy of Family Physicians (FAFP) have asked the DOH to hold a meeting on its proposed new rules but the department hasn’t announced in the Florida Administrative Register whether it intends to do so. Ladapo has the authority to deem the meeting unnecessary.

Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com.

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This article appears in Sept. 18-24, 2025.