Florida Surgeon General Admits He Did No Analysis On How Ending Vaccine Mandates Could Impact Disease Rates

On September 3, Florida's top health official announced plans for his state to become the first in the nation to eliminate all vaccine requirements. Many of those are focused on safeguarding school aged children, college students, and healthcare workers.

During the announcement last week, Florida's Republican Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo likened the mandates— implemented to halt the spread of once common deadly and permanently disabling diseases like polio, tuberculosis, whooping cough, mumps, and measles—to slavery.

Ladapo stated:

"Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery, OK? Who am I as a government or anyone else or who am I as a man standing here now to tell you what you should put in your body?"

Bringing his Christian nationalist beliefs to the fore, Ladapo added:

"Who am I to tell you what your child should put in your [sic] body? I don't have that right. Your body‐‐your body is a gift from God. What you put into your body, what you put into your body is because of your relationship with your body and your God, I don't have that right."

The announcement produced bipartisan pushback, with even the GOP not interested in bringing back curable diseases to their constituents. Before and after his appointment as Florida's head of public health, Ladapo has been criticized by doctors and health organizations for spreading misinformation and unsupported pseudoscience and conspiracy theories.

For those hoping Ladapo's decision to end all vaccination requirements in Florida was based on sound science or medical research instead of just his Christian faith and personal beliefs, their hopes were dashed when the well-documented anti-vaxxer appeared on CNN.

Speaking with Jake Tapper on Sunday, Ladapo reiterated his plan to end all vaccine requirements in Florida.

Tapper asked him:

"Hepatitis A, whooping cough, and chickenpox cases are rising in Florida. Before you made this decision to try to lift vaccine mandates for Florida, did your department do any data analysis of how many new cases of these diseases there will be with no vaccine mandates?"

Ladapo confidently replied:

"Absolutely not."

Tapper responded:

"You didn't even do a projection?"

Ladapo dismissed the need for proper public health protocols by stating:

"It's an issue of right and wrong."

You can a clip from the interview here:

People weren't convinced of the merits of Ladapo's plan by his answers to Tapper's questions.

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Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis hand-picked Joseph Ladapo as Florida’s surgeon general in September 2021.

At the time, Ladapo's star was on the rise among conservatives due to his efforts fighting vaccine mandates for COVID-19.

Current Florida law mandates immunizations that protect against measles-mumps-rubella, polio, and chickenpox for children attending public school.