If you have any question as to whether DeSantis is fit to be president of the United States, his decision to hire this man should answer it. He either did it because he actually believes that the COVID vaccines are dangerous, which makes him a moron or he did it out of a cynical desire to appeal to anti-vax voters. Either way, it was a disgraceful decision and should disqualify him from ever having higher office of any kind:
Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo personally altered a state-driven study about Covid-19 vaccines last year to suggest that some doses pose a significantly higher health risk for young men than had been established by the broader medical community, according to a newly obtained document.
Ladapo’s changes, released as part of a public records request, presented the risks of cardiac death to be more severe than previous versions of the study. He later used the final document in October to bolster disputed claims that Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines were dangerous to young men.
The surgeon general, a well-known Covid-19 vaccine skeptic, faced a backlash from the medical community after he made the assertions, which go against guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and American Academy of Pediatrics. But Ladapo’s statements aligned well with Gov. Ron DeSantis’ stance against mandatory Covid-19 vaccination.
Researchers with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and University of Florida, who viewed Ladapo’s edits on the study and have followed the issue closely, criticized the surgeon general for making the changes. One said it appears Ladapo altered the study out of political — not scientific — concerns.
“I think it’s a lie,” Matt Hitchings, an assistant professor of biostatistics at the University of Florida, said of Ladapo’s assertion that the Covid-19 vaccine causes cardiac death in young men. “To say this — based on what we’ve seen, and how this analysis was made — it’s a lie.”
The newly released draft of the eight-page study, provided by the Florida Department of Health, indicates that it initially stated that there was no significant risk associated with the Covid-19 vaccines for young men. But “Dr. L’s Edits,” as the document is titled, reveal that Ladapo replaced that language to say that men between 18 and 39 years old are at high risk of heart illness from two Covid vaccines that use mRNA technology.
“Results from the stratified analysis for cardiac related death following vaccination suggests mRNA vaccination may be driving the increased risk in males, especially among males aged 18-39,” Ladapo wrote in the draft. “The risk associated with mRNA vaccination should be weighed against the risk associated with COVID-19 infection.”
In a statement to POLITICO, Ladapo said revisions and refinements are a normal part of assessing surveillance data and that he has the appropriate expertise and training to make those decisions.
“To say that I ‘removed an analysis’ for a particular outcome is an implicit denial of the fact that the public has been the recipient of biased data and interpretations since the beginning of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine campaign,” he said. “I have never been afraid of disagreement with peers or media.”
He also said that he determined the study was worthwhile since “the federal government and Big Pharma continue to misrepresent risks associated with these vaccines.”
The DeSantis administration referred questions to Florida’s Department of Health.
Ladapo, a Harvard-trained doctor who held professorships at UCLA and NYU, specializes in cardiovascular diseases and gained attention nationally during the pandemic after he authored op-eds in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today questioning the safety of Covid-19 vaccines and the effectiveness of mask-wearing and lockdowns.
He was also a supporter of hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malaria drug that former President Donald Trump often praised as a treatment for Covid. The FDA later withdrew emergency authorization for its use.
Ladapo was picked by DeSantis in September 2021 to become the state’s surgeon general as DeSantis waged war against President Joe Biden’s Covid-related restrictions and ordered the state to ban mask-wearing requirements in schools and employer-issued vaccine mandates.
This man may be a qualified cardiovascular doctor but he’s also got a terrible case of Fox News brain rot and should not be anywhere near patients, public health or anything else until he gets treatment for it.