When Gov. Ron DeSantis tapped Dr. Joseph Ladapo to serve as Florida’s surgeon general, the highly controversial doctor became the Sunshine State’s top public health official. The University of Florida wanted to go a step further and give Ladapo a second well-paid position.
In fact, as Politico reported, it was just two years ago when the school — the flagship of the state’s university system — took steps to fast-track Ladapo into a tenured professorship, with the expectation that he’d bring in lucrative grant funding and conduct worthwhile research on internal medicine. With this in mind, Ladapo was able to skip past the usual review process generally required for candidates for tenured professorships.
Apparently, that hasn’t turned out especially well. From the Politico report:
[Ladapo] edited science research manuscripts, gave a guest lecture for grad students and wrote a memoir about his vaccine skepticism. … Some also bristled that Ladapo, in an email to the heads of the medical school, said he’d only visited the sprawling Gainesville campus twice in his first year on the job, showing a lack of familiarity with Florida’s flagship medical school.
An unnamed professor was quoted saying that Ladapo has “undoubtedly sullied the academic reputation” of the University of Florida.
Democratic state Sen. Tina Polsky added that she’d asked Ladapo during his confirmation hearing last year about his performance at the school, and he responded with “his typical word salad answers.” She added, “This guy is a charlatan.”
It’s worth noting for context that this is hardly the first controversy surrounding Florida’s surgeon general. Revisiting our earlier coverage, Ladapo has rejected vaccination guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and faced accusations about misleading the public. He’s embarrassed professional colleagues with his antics and urged the public not to trust scientists, physicians, and other…
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