Sarasota hospital board sidesteps proposal to endorse Ladapo anti-vaccine stance

Correction: QR codes detailing the latest information on COVID-19 vaccines were provided to healthcare providers administering the vaccines and not printed on the vaccine circular. An earlier version of this story said otherwise.

A proposal for Sarasota Memorial Hospital to embrace the controversial medical philosophies of Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo found no support Tuesday when the Sarasota County Public Hospital Board met in a closed session and drafted a new statement reinforcing patients' rights, the doctor-patient relationship and encouraging "patients and their health care providers to access all credible resources regarding their discussions and decisions."

The new motion ultimately passed on an 8-1 vote by the board – after removal of a fifth provision, to forward public concerns about vaccines to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Food and Drug Administration – with Patricia Maraia dissenting.

Ironically, the action did not call for the policy to be posted on Sarasota Memorial's website, which was the intent of the pro-Ladapo policy proposal that prompted the board's consideration of the issue.

Prior to the vote, Hospital Board Member Victor Rohe – who had wanted to see Lapado’s assertions on vaccines and other medical care included on the hospital's website – explained to a crowd of roughly 150 people that the policy statement endorsed by the board was a compromise.

“We had a very extensive and heated discussion and based upon what that discussion produced is what produced what we have now,” Rohe said.

The motion approved by the board highlighted four principles stating that the board will:

• Respect and honor a patient’s right to make their own health care decision within the patient-physician relationship;

• Not invade the physician-patient relationship or mandate treatment regimens;

• Respect that patients and their physicians can determine the proper treatments, interventions and vaccinations;

• Continue to advocate for retrospective analysis research and evidence-based recommendations “from state and federal regulatory agencies with the responsibility for public health initiatives, including vaccines, and encourage patients and their health care providers to access all credible resources regarding their discussions and decisions."

A lack of support for the board member's proposal about Florida's Surgeon General Ladapo

For Rohe’s initial motion to be adopted during a meeting of the Quality Control Committee – which consists of the full hospital board, but in a closed session – it needed to be seconded for discussion.

His original motion asked that the website be updated in the news and events section with the following suggested language: “Recent data suggests that there may be significant risks of both short term and long term harm from taking the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines.”

It included language attributed to Ladapo that read: “These vaccines are not  appropriate for use in human beings,” and closed with the sentence, “In the spirit of transparency and scientific integrity, State Surgeon General Dr. Joseph A. Ladapo will continue to assess research surrounding these risks and provide updates to Floridians.”

Federal health officials say Ladapo’s position is contrary to science and potentially deadly.

The nine board members leaned on input from the chief medical officer and associate chiefs for the Venice and Sarasota medical campuses, who also attended in developing a revised stance.

Based on discussion with medical executive committees and doctors, the doctors had concerns about how Ladapo's language hindered the patient-doctor relationship.

Instead, they helped craft a motion that supports the autonomy of the physician-patient relationship.

The entire Quality Control committee endorsed that motion.

Both Maraia and Rohe were members of a “health freedom ticket” that won three seats on the board in 2022.

The third member of that ticket, Bridgette Fiorucci, explained in the public meeting that she did not want to support Rohe’s motion to post Lapado’s assertions on the website out of principle.

“I don’t feel it’s our position as a hospital to post because we’re bullying the same way as the mandates,” Fiorucci said, referencing COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

“Lee Memorial doesn’t have anything like that,” she continued, referencing Lee Health, the Fort Myers-based public hospital system governed by an elected board of directors. “Trying to change it through this is the wrong way to go.”

Public raises concern about retribution if comments were forwarded to the CDC or FDA

Nokomis resident Lisa Roulet was the first of several speakers who did not want to see their comments forward to the two federal agencies.

“You are putting me back in the hands of my abuser,” said Roulet, who went on to encourage the board to follow the words of Ladapo, who has said that the mRNA vaccines can change the DNA inside a cell, an assertion federal scientists reject.

Englewood resident and conservative activist Conni Brunni echoed those concerns.

“It is long past time for this elected board to go on record with Dr. Ladapo’s recommendations,” said Brunni, who added that she wants the federal government and the CDC out of her health care.

She said the prospect of the hospital board sending off concerns to the CDC and FDA, “comes across to me as a taxpayer, as a threat."

Osprey resident Clayton Taylor added: “We are not the patient of the government, we are not the patient  of a pharmaceutical company, we are not the patients of a medical corporation, we are the patient of our doctor.”

North Port resident Michelle Pozzie was also critical of the hospital board's stance.

“Everyone is agreeing to this watered down version of a motion,” Pozzie said.

“We asked you to put Joseph Ladapo’s words as the Surgeon General on the website,” she said, then asked  why a publicly funded hospital was not “echoing” the words of state’s top medical official.

“Is Joseph Ladapo not a credible source?” she asked.

Several members of the crowd who attended specifically to oppose Rohe’s motion being adopted responded in unison, “no.”

“They don’t want science,” Pozzie responded before finishing. “They want a flippin’ echo chamber and I’m done with it.”

Potential 2024 election issue

During public comment, several medical professionals affiliated with Sarasota Memorial spoke against the adoption of Rohe’s original motion.

Dr. Washington Hill, an obstetrics and gynecology expert, stressed that the mRNA COVID-19 vaccinations do not impact DNA.

“Saying they do is false,” Hill said, then noted that such misinformation results in fewer people – including pregnant women – getting vaccinated.

“Not interfering with my doctor-patient relationship is real medical freedom,” Hill said.

Dr. John Abu, another obstetrics and gynecology expert, noted that he chose to practice at Sarasota Memorial because of a culture of safety and respect between patients and staff.

“The physician-patient relationship is sacred,” Abu said. “To ask any of us to do otherwise – to deviate from scientifically approved treatment is a pill that is hard for me to swallow.

“The practice of medicine should be and always should be guided by scientific medicine and not politics and ideology.”

Sally Nista, a frequent hospital critic, stressed that she and other conservatives do not want to see the hospital privatized.

“Conservatives love having a public hospital,” Nista said. “We are so grateful SMH is a public hospital and we can and will be participating to make sure that you are doing all of the right things.”

Later, she too decried the board’s refusal to post Lapado’s COVID-19 vaccine positions on the hospital’s website.

“I am grateful about his differing viewpoint,” Nista said. “Why then is it so difficult to share Dr. Ladapo’s recommendation?

“It’s telling. It tells me that you’re not as transparent as you say you are – that’s a problem, a problem that we plan to fix on Aug. 20.”

Four of the nine hospital board seats are up for election this year, with primaries scheduled for Aug. 20.

Though at least three hospital board candidates attended the meeting, only one – Dr. Stephen Guffanti, whose complaints about his treatment for COVID at Sarasota Memorial helped spark the conservative backlash that has engulfed the hospital board – chose to speak.

“Why not post both the Surgeon General's position and the science?” Guffanti said. “This would give the public informed consent.”

He later pulled out a mostly blank description of a medication provided by a manufacturer then claimed that offered no science. When the vaccines were introduced those documents were left blank, with QR codes detailing the latest information the vaccines given to healthcare providers administering the vaccines, so they could relay the most current information.

Robin Taub Williams, a retired biology teacher and frequent hospital supporter, said she was happy the board opted against the Ladapo motion but added, “It seems like you’re trying to appease the anti-vaxxers and I’m very concerned because public health is critical and critically relies upon vaccination of highly infectious diseases.

“Sarasota County has the worst record of childhood immunization in the state and literally 10% of kindergarteners are not vaccinated,” she said, then later added, “Measles vaccination averted 56 million deaths between 2000 and 2021 – before the ‘63 measles vaccine, major epidemics causes 2.6 million deaths every year.

“It’s incomprehensible that Florida’s surgeon general would make such dangerous recommendations.”

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Sarasota hospital board adopts alternative Ladapo anti vaccine stance