[[link removed]]
FLORIDA IS SWAMPED BY DISEASE
[[link removed]]
Richard Luscombe
March 3, 2024
Guardian
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]
_ In Florida, quackery is replacing science. The state is in the grip
of a measles outbreak, yet Joseph Ladapo, the surgeon general,
continues to ignore medical science to stop it. _
,
Shortly before Joseph Ladapo was sworn in as Florida’s surgeon
general in 2022, the New Yorker ran a short column welcoming the
vaccine-skeptic doctor to his new role, and highlighting his advocacy
for the use of leeches
[[link removed]] in
public health.
It was satire of course, a teasing of the Harvard-educated physician
for his unorthodox medical views, which include a steadfast belief
that life-saving Covid shots are the work of the devil
[[link removed]],
and that opening a window is the preferred treatment for the
inhalation of toxic fumes from gas stoves.
‘Not a disease you want to relive’: why is the US seeing outbreaks
of measles?
[[link removed]]
But now, with an entirely preventable outbreak of measles spreading
across Florida
[[link removed]],
medical experts are questioning if quackery really has become official
health policy in the nation’s third most-populous state.
As the highly contagious disease raged in a Broward county elementary
school, Ladapo, a politically appointed acolyte of Florida’s
far-right governor, Ron DeSantis
[[link removed]], wrote to parents
telling them it was perfectly fine for parents to continue to send in
their unvaccinated children.
“The surgeon general is Ron DeSantis’s lapdog, and says whatever
DeSantis wants him to say,” said Dr Robert Speth, a professor of
pharmaceutical sciences at south Florida’s Nova Southeastern
University with more than four decades of research experience.
“His statements are more political than medical and that’s a
horrible disservice to the citizens of Florida. He’s somebody whose
job is to protect public health, and he’s doing the exact
opposite.”
Ladapo’s advice
[[link removed]] deferring
to parents or guardians a decision about school attendance directly
contradicts the official recommendation of the federal Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which calls for a 21-day period
of quarantine for anybody without a history of prior infection or
immunization.
It is also in keeping with Ladapo’s previous maverick proclamations
about vaccines that health professionals say pose an unacceptable
danger to the health of Florida residents. They include
official guidance to shun mRNA Covid-19 boosters
[[link removed]] based
on easily disprovable conspiracy theories that the shots alter human
DNA and can potentially cause cancer – “scientific nonsense” in
the view of Dr Ashish Jha, a former White House Covid response
coordinator.
Meanwhile, with measles having been eradicated in the US since 2000,
the disease’s resurgence, paired with Ladapo’s latest
misadventure, has prompted a new round of mocking commentary. Florida:
Come for the Sunshine, Leave With the Measles, opined the Orlando
Sentinel
[[link removed]];
“Measles? So On-brand for Florida’s Descent Into the 1950s”, was
the take of the Tampa Bay Times
[[link removed]].
His statements are more political than medical and that’s a horrible
disservice to the citizens of Florida
Dr Robert Speth
The backlash prompted the Florida department of health to publish
“clarifying information
[[link removed]]” this
week, in which it insisted that the stay-at-home recommendation had in
fact been given to parents at Manatee Bay elementary school, and
attempted to blame the media for “reporting false information and
politicizing this outbreak”.
Department officials repeated the claim in a subsequent statement.
“The media has continued to peddle the narrative that Dr Ladapo has
defied science in his recent letter. In reality, he has used available
data and immunity rates to drive policy decisions impacting Manatee
Bay Elementary,” the deputy press secretary Grant Kemp said.
“97% of students at Manatee Bay Elementary have received at least
one dose of the MMR immunization. Outbreaks are occurring in multiple
states, and the national immunization rate for measles is less than
92%.”
Reporting false information, incidentally, is something Ladapo is
familiar with himself. He was found to have personally manipulated
data
[[link removed]] in
a 2022 study of Covid-19 vaccines to wrongly assert they posed an
elevated risk of cardiac illness or death in young men.
To Speth, and numerous other medical experts
[[link removed]],
Ladapo’s risky succession of positions denying even the most obvious
benefits of immunization and vaccination is a symptom of a wider
political assault by the right wing, which carries deadly potential.
Its origins, Speth believes, lie in a long-discredited study by the
disgraced British former doctor Andrew Wakefield
[[link removed]] falsely tying
the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine to autism, but which
was enthusiastically embraced by anti-vaxxers
[[link removed]] and
other extremists in the US.
“The Wakefield study was a gross fraud, yet today up to 25% of our
population believes it, and opportunistic politicians seize on the
sentiment to tell people what they want to hear about the danger of
vaccines,” he said.
“Republicans are at war with medical science, and that’s a
horrible tragedy. But I feel like Cassandra, talking about the public
health threat. We’re going to start seeing a lot more children die
of infectious diseases that could be prevented if they were
vaccinated.”
Ladapo has been hailed a “superstar”
[[link removed]] by
DeSantis, who sidelined then dumped
[[link removed]] his
predecessor, Scott Rivkees, for contradicting the governor’s
position on social distancing and face masks during the Covid-19
pandemic.
Ladapo became a vocal cheerleader of the governor’s anti-mask,
vaccine and lockdown decrees; and was a prominent member of Frontline
Doctors of America, a fringe cluster of radical physicians that pushed
ineffective medicines such as ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine as a
cure for the virus.
To pretend that the vaccine is unnecessary to eradicate measles is
completely illogical, because that’s the reason it’s been gone
from our country
Tina Polsky
The group’s founder, Simone Gold, received a 60-day prison sentence
[[link removed]] in
2022 for taking part in the 6 January Capitol riot.
Additionally, Ladapo was a signatory to the Great Barrington
Declaration, an open letter claimed to have been signed by 15,000
scientists and medical professionals calling for a herd immunity
approach to Covid, but which included a multitude of spoof names
including Dr Johnny Bananas, Dr Person Fakename and Dr I P Freely.
Democrats in Florida say Ladapo’s handling of the measles outbreak
is one more reason why they believe he is unsuited for a job in which
he earns in excess of $600,000 a year, paid almost equally by the
state and University of Florida, where he was given tenured
professorship as an incentive to come.
“What’s so sad about it is it’s completely preventable,” said
state senator Tina Polsky, who has been one of Ladapo’s staunchest
critics.
“In a moment of crisis we need the best level-headed people to be
running that department of health, and now we’re in our next crisis
after Covid and we have someone who doesn’t want to follow accepted
scientific guidelines in charge.
“To pretend that the vaccine is unnecessary to eradicate measles is
completely illogical, because that’s the reason it’s been gone
from our country. It will have some devastating outcomes, it’s going
to scare a lot of people, and kids are going to be out of school,
which has its own negative outcomes.”
_Richard Luscombe
[[link removed]] is a reporter
for Guardian US based in Miami, Florida. Twitter @richlusc
[[link removed]]_
_Scroll less and understand more about the subjects you care about
with the Guardian's brilliant email newsletters
[[link removed]], free to your inbox._
* Florida
[[link removed]]
* vaccines
[[link removed]]
* public health
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]
INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT
Submit via web
[[link removed]]
Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]
Manage subscription
[[link removed]]
Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]
Twitter [[link removed]]
Facebook [[link removed]]
[link removed]
To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]
