Editorial: Re-appointing Dr. Joseph Ladapo as surgeon general bad Rx for public health

Editorials from The Palm Beach Post Editorial Board are the opinions of the Board, not of the Post newsroom.

In just about any place else, Dr. Joseph Ladapo wouldn't hold the job he now has. But, this is Florida, where the surgeon general who runs the Florida Department of Health and holds a faculty position at the University of Florida can espouse dubious scientific theories, run afoul of commonly accepted medical practices, use his position to undermine public health and still not worry about being shown the door. Instead, he received a job extension.

In the closing days of the legislative session, the Florida Senate confirmed Dr. Ladapo's re-appointment as surgeon general. The chamber's Republican majority made the decision over the objections of their Democratic colleagues. The state of Florida and its many residents who rely on a viable, competent public health agency are the losers for it.

What other way is there to describe a physician who's so eager to go to war with the science concerning COVID, questioning the validity of masks and vaccines? How do you explain a public health administrator who went out of his way to oppose the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations on protecting children against the pandemic through vaccinations — the only state in the nation to do so. What's the rationale for altering a state COVID vaccinations report to mislead citizens who need reliable medical information?

“If we just blindly vote through this man, we are saying it’s OK to lie on scientific studies that will potentially determine the outcome of someone’s life,” state Sen. Tina Polsky, D-Boca Raton said during the confirmation.

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It's politics, of course. Dr. Ladapo's record suggests little that warrants his ratification for the job. Since arriving in Florida in 2021, he remains loyal to Gov. DeSantis, serving more as a political hack than bona fide physician.

His antics, whether it's his opposition to federal government's response to the pandemic or more recently his recommended changes to gender dysphoria treatments for transgender youth living in Florida, overshadow any strides made by the 1,800 employees working in the local health departments in Florida's 67 counties. As a public health administrator, he continues to embarrass his profession, undermines public confidence.

Dr. Ladapo arguably was a questionable choice from the start. A COVID skeptic that our colleagues at The Orlando Sentinel soon labeled " a well-educated COVID crank," he drew a complaint from a Delray Beach eye doctor who filed a complaint with the Department of Health against the surgeon general for making statements he knew to be false. The complaint didn't get far but served as a warning of what would come under Dr. Ladapo's tenure.

There was the infamous run-in with Sen. Polsky, who had been diagnosed with breast cancer and asked the doctor and his aides to don face masks before a scheduled meeting in her office. He refused. The aborted meeting drew national attention and a rebuke from then-Senate President Wilton Simpson who said: “It shouldn’t take a cancer diagnosis for people to respect each other’s level of comfort with social interactions during a pandemic.”

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But, the good doctor didn't stop there. He changed the way the state reports COVID deaths to the CDC and the public, making it appear that the pandemic in Florida was less severe than it actually was. In October, he recommended that males between 18 and 39 should avoid COVID vaccines, pointing to health risks that most credible physicians and health administrators say doesn't exist. Press reports later revealed Dr. Ladapo personally altered the study, and those edits produced a fierce backlash from the medical community, including some faculty at the University of Florida's College of Medicine. An act that brazen should justify a change. Not here, folks.

Florida deserves better than Dr. Ladapo, who garners attention by snubbing his nose at the CDC, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and The Endocrine Society than by enhancing state and county efforts to promote and improve the health of all Floridians — the actual work of a state surgeon general. Unfortunately, that's not the job description Gov. DeSantis and the Florida Senate chose to fill.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Florida public health undermined by Dr. Joseph Ladapo