TALLAHASSEE · Senate Democrats said on Monday that the Republicans who run the state should urge Washington to pay for smallpox vaccinations for Floridians because the state can't afford it.

The first phase of a plan to inoculate about 30,000 disease investigators and frontline hospital employees against smallpox is scheduled to begin next month.

 

The $3.7 million cost for that will be covered by a $40 million federal grant from the Centers for Disease Control.

The cost of a second phase in which about 300,000 additional health care workers and police would be inoculated was estimated by Democrats at another $33 million, which would almost exhaust the grant.

But Senate Democrats said that expanding the program to a larger section of the general public would cost about $84 million and argued the state can't afford that.

"How are we going to pay for this?" asked Senate Democratic Leader Ron Klein of Boca Raton. "This shouldn't be a case of choosing between disease protection from terrorists or disease protection from mosquitoes or eradication of citrus canker. If the federal government plans to launch such an ambitious program, then Washington should shoulder the costs."

Smallpox was eradicated in 1980, but the federal government fears leftover stocks could pose a bioterrorism risk. The vaccine will be made available to civilian health care workers who would come in contact with victims. Federal officials have generally decided against inoculation of the entire country, though that could come later.

Democrats said the Republicans in control of the Legislature and GOP Gov. Jeb Bush should urge the federal government to expand funding for the program.

Officials from Gov. Bush's office didn't return calls seeking comment, nor did the Republican House and Senate budget chairmen.

But Rob Hayes, a spokesman for the state Department of Health, said that discussions at the federal level were still continuing about how to pay for the entire program.