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A school district in Florida tightened its mask mandate after receiving hundreds of exemption forms signed by the same chiropractor. The Sarasota County School Board implemented a 90-day mask mandate for everybody on campus but allowed opt-outs of medical reasons.
School officials said they received over 1,700 exemption forms and found that 650 of them were signed by Dr. Dan Busch, who works as a chiropractor in Venice. After noticing the large number of forms signed by Busch, who is not considered a medical doctor, the school altered its policies and said the exemption forms must be signed by licensed medical doctors, osteopathic physicians, or advanced registered nurse practitioners.
"I hope each of you know that my number one priority is to keep your children safe so that they can continue to learn at the highest levels possible. I appreciate everyone's understanding as we collectively work to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in our schools," Superintendant Dr. Brennan Asplen wrote in a letter to parents.
Busch defended signing the exemption forms.
"Every evaluation that I performed was very specific, and I performed them in my scope of practice," Busch told WWSB. "I had to stay very specific to the diagnoses that were in my wheelhouse; there are plenty that weren't."
When asked by CNN if he examined every child, Busch replied: "This wasn't about me. This is about parents' freedom."