You can't make this stuff up: Florida lawmakers are going to reconsider a proposal to expand vaccine exemptions for school children just as the state is battling a measles outbreak with 145 cases so far, the fourth-highest number in the nation.

Legislators have already spoken on this issue: During the regular session earlier this year, they rejected the Medical Freedom Act. The Senate passed the bill; the House didn't take it up, wisely letting it die.

But Gov. Ron DeSantis, not content to let a bad and dangerous idea fade away, added it to the agenda for the special session that starts Tuesday. The session will now include an effort to redraw Florida congressional districts that many in DeSantis' own Republican Party think is too risky; a proposal to regulate artificial intelligence that lawmakers also failed to pass in the regular session, and a push to expand vaccine exemptions for school children.

Will lawmakers have enough sense to say no to the vaccine issue a second time? We fervently hope so.

Florida already allows exemptions for medical or religious reasons. Couching this latest attack on vaccines as an issue of "conscience" fails to consider the other part of the equation: those who could get infected by unvaccinated children. That includes babies too young to get the vaccine and others with compromised immune systems.

When a parent chooses not to vaccinate their child against an illness as contagious and serious as measles, they aren't just risking their own family. They're risking the health of people all around them. If there's an issue of conscience to be considered, surely that should be it.

Consider this, too: Florida's childhood vaccination rates have continued to drop, with the rate for Florida kindergartners now around 88 percent for the second school year in a row. In 2016, the rate was as high as 94 percent. To achieve "herd immunity," when enough people are vaccinated to stop the spread of disease, you need about a 95 percent rate of vaccination.

But what do we expect in a state where the governor and the surgeon general, Joseph Ladapo, have vowed to end all state vaccine requirements for kids attending school, a list that includes shots that protect against measles-mumps-rubella, polio, chickenpox and Hepatitis B?

DeSantis loves to tout the wonders of the "free state of Florida"--especially as he looks for his next job once his term ends--but freedom can only go so far without infringing on the freedoms of others.

Florida lawmakers were right the first time. Children need vaccines, especially for measles.

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