Much of the blame for Dr. Joseph Ladapo’s tenure as Florida’s surgeon general belongs to Gov. Ron DeSantis. It was, after all, the far-right Republican who tapped the radical doctor in the first place.
But the Sunshine State’s GOP-led state Senate bears some responsibility, too, especially as Ladapo begins his second term. The Miami Herald reported late last week:
Fear is one word often cited by patients, doctors, public health experts, vaccine advocates and abortion providers when asked about the prospects of the second term of Dr. Joseph Ladapo, who was hand-picked by DeSantis 19 months ago during a coronavirus pandemic wave and reconfirmed Thursday by the state Senate in a 27-12 vote along party lines.
Part of what made the vote so striking was the timing. The Florida surgeon general was, after all, just caught up in a rather dramatic controversy.
To briefly recap for those just joining us, it was last fall when Ladapo added to his list of dubious pronouncements: The physician recommended that males between the ages of 18 and 39 avoid commonly used mRNA Covid vaccines, pointing to possible health risks that credible experts said didn’t exist in reality. In fact, Ladapo simply discarded the conclusions from the Centers for Disease Control and American Academy of Pediatrics altogether.
David Gorski, a surgical oncologist and debunker of anti-vaccine nonsense, wrote soon after, “This is the first time that we’ve seen a state government weaponize bad science to spread anti-vaccine disinformation as official policy.” He went on to describe the move from Florida’s surgeon general as “a dangerous new escalation in anti-vaccine propaganda.”
But while Lapado’s move was widely seen as provocative at the time, the story got worse two weeks ago: Politico reported that the Florida surgeon general received a state-driven study about Covid vaccines, saw the evidence that said there were no significant risks associated with the vaccines for young men, and…
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