Health
Related: About this forumThe Florida Surgeon General Who Likens Vaccine Mandates To Slavery
BBC News, Sept. 4, 2025.
The surgeon general of Florida has vowed to end vaccine mandates in the state, even for children, announcing plans on Wednesday to wipe "all of them, every last one of them" off the books.
Dr Joseph Ladapo, who likened the requirements to slavery during the announcement, is a noted vaccine sceptic.
He gained national attention after he was appointed Florida's doctor during the Covid-19 pandemic for issuing notices that contradicted guidance from federal health authorities and also for seeming to rely on shaky science.
Earlier this year, he was also one of the top names under consideration by the Trump administration to run the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). As President Donald Trump and Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr push to change the country's vaccine and immunisation policies, Ladapo is poised to be given even more national attention, and scrutiny.
An immigrant with two degrees from Harvard
Ladapo, who immigrated with his family to the US from Nigeria when he was five, received his medical training and a PhD in health policy from Harvard University. Along with heading Florida's health department, he teaches medicine at the University of Florida and conducts research on minimising cardiovascular risk among disadvantaged and low-income groups, according to his official state biography.
The Tallahassee Democrat has reported that his total salary, which includes university teaching, is more than $350,000 (£261,000) a year...
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62q41qm9pvo

Irish_Dem
(75,817 posts)LoisB
(11,763 posts)Irish_Dem
(75,817 posts)At top of the line clinics.
appalachiablue
(43,593 posts)and all of us. Elderly friends in the Sunshine State who have chronic illnesses are waffling now about getting the Covid shot because of their longtime GP who is anti vax. I sent them good info. and am pleading with them to ignore politics and go ahead and get the shot, ASAP. Here's hoping. Tx for replying.
Irish_Dem
(75,817 posts)And there is not a damn thing we can do about it.
Other than warn people, for all the good it will do.
Last winter some older friends got covid which turned into Covid pneumonia.
They were very sick. And they were vaxxed.
Docs don't think they would have made it if they had not been vaccinated.
appalachiablue
(43,593 posts)high rates of unvaxed or brainwashed residents create dangerous environments for many others, incl. those vaxxed. A festering mess!
- Docs don't think they would have made it if they had not been vaccinated.
Irish_Dem
(75,817 posts)Without vaxs people are more likely to be sneezing and coughing.
And older people in hospitals and nursing homes are in high density
living situations.
So with low vaccinations rates we are back to people dying.