Hundreds of people filled a ballroom for the Florida Department of Children and Families’ 2025 Children and Families Summit to hear First Lady Casey DeSantis and Lt. Governor Jay Collins discuss efforts they say will protect children and families while reshaping public-health policy.

DeSantis, who is the chair of the newly-created Florida MAHA — Make America Healthy Again — Commission, told the crowd she remembers when the governor had worked to prevent mandates that would have required COVID-19 vaccinations as a condition of employment, even while it was required in many other parts of the country.

“We were talking to experts, formulating a plan, obviously, to put the best interests of Floridians first, to make sure the kids were in school, to make sure that there weren’t any forced mRNA COVID vaccinations contingent on people doing their job,” DeSantis said.

DeSantis announced the new commission Wednesday, and said it supports the work of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the state level.

[WATCH: Gov. DeSantis calls to end vaccine mandates in Florida]

Lt. Gov. Collins is also a member and joined DeSantis at the summit. He says he feels strongly about MAHA as he also faced many health challenges of his own. He was an Army Special Forces combat veteran who sustained a number of debilitating injuries that led to the loss of his leg. Despite that, he continued to serve five additional years as a Green Beret post-amputation.

In exclusive remarks to News 6’s Laverne McGee, Lt. Gov. Collins emphasized choice and transparency in vaccination decisions.

“If you want the immunizations, you can do those. It’s perfectly fine. And ultimately, I want people to have transparency in what these things mean. Understand that and then make a choice that is good for you, good for your family,” he said.

[RELATED: FDA to make changes to COVID-19 vaccine recommendations]

Collins also notes he was not speaking as a medical provider but as a parent and policymaker and described personal decisions that shaped his stance.

“I didn’t give my kids the COVID vaccine, and frankly, we had a difficult time finding providers for them and finding pediatricians,” he said, recounting what he called struggles for a medically complex child. He added that those circumstances “shouldn’t happen to other parents.”

He also described the legislative steps he championed to slow the rollout of certain mRNA vaccinations, saying the pause was intended to allow more study. “That’s why I ran the bill last year that actually extended the mRNA timeout … the pause on that, because there’s more to learn,”

The summit, hosted by the Department of Children and Families, featured panels and presentations focused on child welfare, family services and public-health approaches.

Critics of efforts to limit vaccine mandates say such measures risk undermining public-health protections, while supporters frame them as necessary to safeguard parental choice and assess long-term safety.

Florida was the first state to ban vaccine passports during COVID. Governor DeSantis signed legislation to protect jobs and ban vaccine and mask mandates.