ORLANDO, Fla. — As key state leaders work to dismantle school vaccine mandates, a cheeky national campaign promoting childhood shots and featuring a fictional mascot called “Mr. Measles” is taking aim at Florida — and the character himself is set to appear Thursday at a Department of Health hearing in Seminole County.

“My campaign promises are simple: No mandates, no clarity, more measles,” Mr. Measles’ satirical website declares. “Vaccine access is on the ballot this November and I want less of it.”

The organization behind him has placed ads in newspapers across the state, handed leaflets to voters and paid for Facebook ads directing users to the website, which features the titular character with a man’s body and a yellow ball for a head. As Mr. Measles’ name suggests, he is covered in bright red spots.

The website depicts him as a candidate for public office, with one image showing his wife, child, cat and dog by his side, all covered in spots as well.

Mr. Measles was created “to raise awareness about the resurgence of measles in the United States, declining childhood vaccination rates, and the preventable nature of this public health crisis,” according to a statement at the bottom of the website.

There have been 3,887 confirmed measles cases in the U.S. since the start of the year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as resistance to vaccines has grown among activists and state and national Republican leaders. In all, 46 states, including Florida, as well as the District of Columbia, have reported cases.

About 95% of the people infected had not been vaccinated or their vaccination status was unknown, according to the federal agency. Children and teenagers accounted for the majority of the cases.

Mr. Measles is expected to attend a hearing on Thursday in Lake Mary where the DOH will consider dropping the state mandates for four vaccines currently required of children attending school — though the MMR shot, which protects against measles, is not among them.

A tongue-in-cheek statement written from Mr. Measles’ perspective praised the department’s efforts, which started over a year ago after state Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo said he wanted to do away with vaccine requirements.

“While some people trust decades of medical advice, it is refreshing to see Florida consider removing so many vaccine mandates. People supporting the rule change here today are really helping my campaign spread,” Mr. Measles states.

The website and ads are paid for by a nonprofit organization called Informed Consumer. As a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, the group does not have to disclose its donors, but by federal law the majority of its work is not supposed to be partisan political activity.

A liberal-leaning D.C. lobbyist, Jefferies Murray, is listed as Informed Consumer’s principal officer on the group’s tax documents, according to the Internal Revenue Service. Murray was previously the Chief of Staff for former U.S. Rep. Bud Cramer, a Democrat from Alabama, a founding member of the moderate Blue Dog Coalition. Murray served as executive staff for the coalition and directed the group’s political operations, according to his bio page on his lobbying firm’s website.

Several of the Florida ads seem to reference a letter that was sent over the summer from Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier to the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops, the church’s public policy arm.

In that letter, Uthmeier wrote that the state’s Catholic schools must accept students whose families claim religious exemptions to vaccine mandates and failure to do so may endanger the schools’ eligibility to participate in the state’s voucher or scholarship programs. The state vouchers provide roughly $8,000 for each student that can be used toward tuition at thousands of private schools across the state. Most Catholic schools accept them and at many campuses, all or nearly all of the students use the state awards to help fund their education.

“Of course, a religious school may itself be able to claim an exemption from the requirement to grant religious exemptions if granting such an exemption would violate the religious tenets of the school,” Uthmeier wrote. “But as a Catholic, I am confident that the teachings of the Catholic Church do not require Catholic schools to compel students to take vaccines derived from the tissue of aborted children against the sincerely-held religious objections of their parents.”

By having no “legitimate” reason to reject religious exemptions to vaccine requirements, Catholic schools are breaking Florida law, Uthmeier claimed.

Michael Sheedy, the executive director for the Catholic group, responded in August to Uthmeier’s letter by explaining the Catholic Church’s stance supporting vaccines and emphasizing the organization’s need to protect employees and the roughly 95,000 students who attend diocesan schools, especially those who are particularly vulnerable to preventable diseases or who can’t get the shots for medical reasons.

“Respectfully, any insinuation that a government official can dictate to the Catholic Church (or any religion) how to apply her tenets and dogma, violates well-established constitutional religious freedom rights,” Sheedy said. “… The bishops, not the state, decide how to interpret and apply Catholic principles and theology.”

Uthmeier’s office did not respond to an email seeking comment about the Mr. Measles campaign and a spokeswoman for the Catholic organization declined to comment on the ads.

But Mr. Measles seemingly mocks Uthmeier’s stance on the Catholic schools’ vaccination requirements, with one Facebook ad declaring that it was “time to enroll Florida’s Catholic school kids in Measles.”

Meanwhile, attendees of at least one Tallahassee-area Catholic church emerged from Mass on a recent Sunday to find leaflets from the group left on their windshields. The flyers featured a fake school enrollment form for Mr. Measles, who replied to an inquiry about his vaccination record by declaring “absolutely not.”

An ad that ran in a Tallahassee newspaper also featured an illustration of the Mr. Measles character. “Glad to know some Florida officials support my campaign,” he states.

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