Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, at a Dec. 17, 2021, news conference in Ocala. (Screenshot/Florida Channel)
Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday endorsed his own controversial State Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo for a top health care position in the next Trump administration.
DeSantis went on social media, where he called on his followers to repost a picture of Ladapo if they want to see him serve as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services once President-elect Donald Trump assumes office.
The agency’s website shows that HHS is meant to enhance the health and well-being of all Americans by providing effective health and human services and fostering sound, sustained advances in the sciences underlying medicine, public health, and social services.
DeSantis’ promotion of Ladapo comes days after it was reported that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a known vaccine skeptic who endorsed Trump for president after mounting his own independent bid for president, had been touting Ladapo. ABC News reported that sources indicated that those working on a Trump transition were taking the recommendation seriously.
DeSantis hired Ladapo, who had been on the medical school faculty of the University of California at Los Angeles, to take over Florida’s Department of Health in September 2021. The DOH secretary doubles as state surgeon general and Ladapo also fills a position at the University of Florida.
Lightning rod
During his time in the DeSantis administration, Ladapo has proven a lightning rod, for example by expressing deep skepticism of Covid-19 vaccines and the efficacy of face masks to limit exposure to viruses.
He made national headlines in 2021 when he refused to don a mask during a meeting with state Sen. Tina Polsky, who was being treated for cancer and requested that he wear one. At the time, Ladapo was up for Senate confirmation.
Then-Senate President Wilton Simpson responded by issuing a memo saying the behavior was unprofessional and would not be tolerated in the Florida Senate.
“It shouldn’t take a cancer diagnosis for people to respect each other’s level of comfort with social interactions during a pandemic,” he wrote in the memo.
Ladapo pressed the Florida Board of Medicine to change its rules to prevent physicians from providing minors access to gender-affirming care and to limit access to the care for adults.
More recently, it was Ladapo’s agency that sent warning letters to television stations airing ads urging passage of Amendment 4, the initiative that would have guaranteed access to abortion. The agency general counsel, who signed the warning letters, resigned in protest and said in a federal court filing they actually had been written by attorneys working directly for the governor. The amendment failed Tuesday after it failed to secure a 60% yes vote.
Measles
Earlier this year, Ladapo advised parents that it was up to them to decide whether to keep their children at home amid a measles outbreak in Broward County — counter to usual practice and guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of urging parents to keep unvaccinated children at home.
Dr. Scott Rivkees, state surgeon general for Florida before Ladapo and now at Brown University, criticized Ladapo’s advice on measles and told The Washington Post this week that he should not be considered for such an important position.
“To consider someone with Dr. Ladapo’s stated attitudes towards commonly held medical and public health practices for a leadership role in HHS, which is an agency that protects and promotes our well-being, should make us all worry,” Rivkees told the Post.