Florida’s controversial surgeon general — who has said his religious faith inspires his opposition to COVID vaccines — began the new year by warning mRNA coronavirus vaccines could contaminate patients’ DNA.
That conspiracy theory has been roundly debunked by the scientific and medical community but remains popular in the domain of far-right conspiracy theorists and vaccine deniers.
Surgeon General Joseph A. Ladapo issued a bulletin Jan. 3 that called for a stop in using mRNA coronavirus vaccines. “Providers concerned about patient health risks associated with COVID-19 should prioritize patient access to non-mRNA COVID-19 vaccines and treatment,” he said. “It is my hope that, in regard to COVID-19, the FDA will one day seriously consider its regulatory responsibility to protect human health, including the integrity of the human genome.”
Ladapo is a close ally of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is struggling in the Republican presidential primaries. DeSantis has staked out increasingly more right-wing stances on hot-button issues from immigration to education to the medical care of transgender kids.
Ladapo, a once respected Harvard graduate who teaches at the University of Florida, has lost the respect of most of his academic colleagues, according to a May 13 article in the Orlando Sentinel. But his anti-vaccine declarations resonate with Republican primary voters, who are more likely than the general public to believe myths about the COVID vaccines.
Ladapo has been mentioned as a possible U.S. surgeon general if DeSantis were elected president.
He wrote that his opinions on COVID-19 came through a spiritual awakening from a five-day counseling session in Chinese meridian theory and the qualities of chi.
A lengthy profile of Ladapo in the Orlando Sentinel explained how before he was appointed to the Florida post — while he was an associate professor at UCLA — he started speaking out against COVID lockdowns as fear-based, ineffective policies.
In March 2020, he wrote in USA Today: “We must not let ill-informed, fear-fueled policy compound the casualties of COVID-19.”
Then in his book, Transcend Fear: A Blueprint for Mindful Leadership in Public Health, published in August 2022, he wrote that his opinions on COVID-19 came through a spiritual awakening from a five-day counseling session in Chinese meridian theory and the qualities of chi.
He also said his wife, Brianna, has significantly influenced his views. Of COVID vaccine manufacturers Pfizer and Moderna, he has said: “She just knew that they were up to absolutely no good and she was right.”
Brianna Ladapo describes herself as an “intuitive spiritual healer, movement therapist and teacher.”
As Florida surgeon general, Joseph Ladapo has taken other controversial stances not based in science or medicine, including support for DeSantis’ campaign against the transgender community.
The DeSantis campaign has lauded Ladapo for “standing up for scientific integrity” even as his opinions run counter to the overwhelming scientific consensus.
As part of his anti-vaccine campaign, Ladapo has used his Florida office to conduct his own studies about the effectiveness and dangers of COVID vaccines. Those results match his already stated opinions and have been skewered by the academic and medical community.
He has been accused of sloppy research and of manipulating the results of his research to match his agenda.
The Sentinel quoted Henry I. Miller, a physician and molecular biologist and the Glenn Swogger Distinguished Fellow at the American Council on Science and Health, as saying Ladapo has engaged in “professional misconduct that has harmed the citizens of Florida.”
As surgeon general, Ladapo draws both a government salary and a salary as a research professor at the University of Florida, where other faculty members say he rarely shows up. Together, these two roles earn him more than half a million dollars a year.
But someday soon, the lucrative arrangement will be up, predicted Miller. “He will have great difficulty being hired by another university after this gig is over.”
Ladapo is playing to his political base at the expense of losing his academic platform.
“I’ve never seen a state health authority parrot anti-vaccine disinformation as a justification for stopping the use of a vaccine that has saved so many lives before,” David Gorski, a Wayne State University professor of surgery and oncology and managing editor of Science-Based Medicine, told the Washington Post. “The Republican Party has adopted anti-vaccine, anti-public health ideology of this sort as part of its belief system.”
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