A top health official in Florida vowed Wednesday to end all vaccine mandates in the state, including school requirements, likening the measure to prevent childhood diseases to "slavery."

The announcement thrust the conservative-leaning state into the heart of an intensifying national fight, as vaccine-skeptic federal Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pushes to steer the country away from the life-saving practice.

More than 1,000 current and former workers from the federal health department signed a scathing letter to Congress Wednesday accusing Kennedy of putting the health of Americans at risk and demanding that he resign.

On the West Coast, the Democratic-led states of California, Washington and Oregon said they were creating a new body to issue their own immunization guidelines,

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