In what has become a pattern of spreading vaccine misinformation, the Florida health department is telling older Floridians and others at highest risk from covid-19 to avoid most booster shots, saying they are potentially dangerous.
Clinicians and scientists denounced the message as politically fueled scaremongering that also weakens efforts to protect against diseases like measles and whooping cough.
A prominent Florida doctor expressed dismay that medical leaders in the state, leery of angering Gov. Ron DeSantis, have been slow to counter anti-vaccine messages from Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, including the latest covid bulletin. Ladapo is a DeSantis appointee and the top official at the state health department.
The bulletin makes a number of false or unproven claims about the efficacy and safety of mRNA-based covid vaccines by Pfizer and Moderna, including that they could threaten “the integrity of the human genome.” Florida’s guidance generally regurgitates ideas from anti-vaccine websites, said John Moore, a professor of microbiology at Weill Cornell Medicine.
Ladapo did not respond to a request for comment. DeSantis referred questions to the health department, which said the surgeon general’s guidance and citations “speak for themselves” and pointed to a post he made on the social platform X accusing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and FDA of “gaslighting Americans.”
DeSantis has styled himself and his administration as a bulwark against vaccine mandates, lockdowns, and other restrictive public health protections adopted during the pandemic to curb infections and save lives. Covid vaccination has become a partisan issue, with surveys by KFF, the health information nonprofit that includes KFF Health News, finding that Republicans have far less confidence in the safety and efficacy of the shots than Democrats.
But vaccine historians consulted for this article could not recall any previous state health leader urging residents to shun an FDA-approved and CDC-recommended vaccination. “It’s unprecedented,” said Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
Florida medical leaders should speak out more forcefully against Ladapo’s attacks on public health, said Jeffrey Goldhagen, a pediatrician and professor at the University of Florida College of Medicine in Jacksonville. Ladapo urged people under 65 to avoid covid shots last year and has rejected public health protocols for fighting measles outbreaks.
“What you see is a pattern of fear and neglect of professional responsibilities across the state, in part because of the fear of this governor and the vindictiveness of this governor,” said Goldhagen, a former health department director in Jacksonville.
He specifically criticized the Florida Medical Association, a trade group for physicians, noting that Ladapo is a nonvoting member of the group’s board of governors. The association did not respond to emails requesting comment.
The Florida Health Care Association, whose members run more than 600 long-term care facilities, declined to comment on Ladapo’s bulletin. One nursing home chain, LeadingAge Southeast, said it was aware of both federal and state recommendations on covid boosters and encouraged providers to “engage with their residents, families, and healthcare professionals to make informed decisions.”
A spokesperson for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Cherie Duvall-Jones, said the agency “strongly disagrees with the State Surgeon General of Florida’s characterization of the safety and effectiveness of the updated mRNA COVID-19 vaccines.” The vaccines met the FDA’s “rigorous, scientific standards,” she said, and she urged people to get boosters since the population’s covid immunity has waned.
Among its incorrect claims, the Florida bulletin says the new mRNA boosters wrongly target a viral variant, omicron, that is no longer circulating widely. This is false, since all major variants of covid in the past two years evolved from omicron and subsequent mutations.
“You start off with that and then you go into head-exploding-emoji territory,” Moore said. “It’s a litany of lies out of the anti-vaxxer playbook.”
Other claims in Ladapo’s bulletin include:
- Covid boosters don’t undergo clinical trials. It’s true that covid booster shots, whose mRNA sequences are changed slightly from previous shots, aren’t tested in large trials. Neither are annual influenza vaccines. By the time such tests would be completed, flu season would be over. But the original mRNA shots underwent clinical trials, and as with flu shots, “a lot of evidence has been collected in support of the ongoing use of the vaccines,” said Natalie Dean, a biostatistician at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health.
- The shots pose a risk of infections, autoimmune disease, and other conditions. “I don’t know where these claims come from, but they aren’t accepted by the general medical community,” said William Schaffner, a Vanderbilt University School of Medicine infectious disease specialist. Serious side effects do occur, rarely, as with any medication. U.S. authorities were among the first to detect rare occurrences of myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart tissue, in young adults who got the covid vaccine. Most patients recovered quickly. Myocarditis is more commonly caused by covid infection itself.
- The shots could cause elevated levels of spike protein and foreign genetic material in the blood. These concerns, which circulate on social media, have been disproved or have not panned out. For example, the billionths-of-a-gram quantities of bacterial DNA alleged to be contaminating covid shots are dwarfed by our other exposures, Offit said. “You encounter foreign DNA all the time, assuming you live on the planet and eat anything made from animals or vegetables,” he said. “I don’t know Dr. Ladapo, but I assume he does.”
- Americans face “unknown risk” from too many booster shots. Scientists look at the possibility of “overvaccination” every time they study boosters. So far, no safety risks have been associated with multiple immunizations, Schaffner said.
- Floridians should get exercise and eat vegetables and “healthy fats.” “These things will benefit your general health, but none of them will prevent covid,” Schaffner said.
The bulletin urges all Floridians, including older residents, to avoid mRNA vaccines and find alternatives. But it comes off as “not in good faith” because it doesn’t specifically mention the only non-mRNA vaccine available, from Novavax, Dean said.
Several critics of Ladapo’s bulletin said it read like a tryout for a job in a Trump administration advised by longtime anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has said Trump wants him to help vet senior health officials. Trump has said children receive too many vaccines and suggested that vaccines cause autism, a myth debunked by years of scientific research.
Ironically, although his administration oversaw the triumphantly rapid creation of the first covid vaccines, Trump declined to receive his shots in public, as presidents have done during past epidemics.
Ladapo’s vaccine statement “aligns with Project 2025,” Offit said, referring to the conservative Heritage Foundation policy blueprint. While the plan’s authors include officials from Trump’s first term, he has said it doesn’t reflect his views.
The document calls the CDC “perhaps the most incompetent and arrogant agency in the federal government.”
Organized resistance to vaccines has existed as long as vaccination itself. Within six months of the release of the mRNA vaccines in December 2020, about 70% of American adults were vaccinated. Those who refused put themselves at greater risk of hospitalization or death if they contracted covid, studies have shown.
Cheryl Holder, an internist who practices in Miami, said Ladapo’s statements had dampened interest in vaccination overall. People who are blasé about covid “also don’t want to take the tetanus vaccine, and they don’t want to take the pneumococcal vaccine, or the flu vaccine,” she said.
“We’re in the disinformation age,” Offit said. “It’s certainly a lucrative business, more lucrative than the information business. But what really bothers me is when you have people who are credentialed stand up and say these ridiculous things.”
Ladapo, he noted, has medical and doctoral degrees from Harvard.
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KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
PB says
This article is a great snapshot of what the future of the internet holds. How do we know is right or wrong. Throw in AI and soon the internet is useless for finding factual answers. In addition it fuels the nuts looking for someone to agree with their crazy thought process.
At almost 72 I am more worried what a serious covid episode will feel like than fear of long term affects of the vax. I got the shot!
What do our kids do?
Kennan says
Well said PB.
You and the rest are right on time. AI especially is gonna be a potential horror show. We are systematically kicking ourselves out of our own existence. AI has 101 negative end results we haven’t even thought of yet.
S.Peters says
This excuse of a surgeon general is a pathetic stooge for Desantis and his evil warped attempt at governing.
BillC says
It bears repeating- “unvaccinated adults were about 97 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than fully vaccinated people who had received boosters” according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. Believe the scientists, not the self serving politicians.
Neb Toltool says
97×0 still equals 0
FlaPharmTech says
Just get your vaccines! They are safe.
Camel says
Baaa
FlaPharmTech says
Sheeply, you’re disagreeing? Please cite your reasoning for not getting the vaccine. Science wants to know. Belch it out!
Laurel says
And poof! Camel is gone.
Another Concerned Taxpayer !!! says
I’ve noticed that most times that Ladapo is in front of a TV camera making one of his unscientific medical claims, that he smiles, which I believe is his tell. So have deduced that when he smiles on camera, he is about to lie again. The word quack comes to mind when I think of him.
Additionally, I am surprised that out of all of the Front Line Doctors to pick from, that DeSantis chose him over Dr. Stella Immanuel. She would have been more appropriate for his authoritarian beliefs, as her claims are far more outrageous than Ladapo’s and would secure him more camera time, after all he is a camera whore. He takes every opportunity to get in front of a camera. He believes that every time he is on camera for the public to see, it gives him more exposure to the electorate, therefore more of candidate with name recognition, all part of his strategic plan for his life long quest for becoming President of the United States, or based on his actions as Governor of Florida, the King of the United States.
Kat says
I am in the medical field and receive those ridiculous letters from our surgeon general. When I got this last one regarding the Covid boosters, I felt like he should be referred to the AMA to have his license revoked. I actually went to his cited sources trying to piece together where he would find information to support his statements and they actually contradicted what he wrote!
Covid is still out there and it is still killing people. In the past week I lost my brother-in-law to Covid. Yes, he had an underlying condition that affected his immune system but that is not uncommon, especially in Florida. I am getting my flu and Covid vaccines later this week and I encourage everyone else to do so as well.
Jane Gentile Youd says
We are living in a very scary, frightening new world spinning in opposite directions at the same time.
I know I have a permanent loss of full food taste which I ‘blame’ on side effects of the vaccines ( original and 2 boosters) but if I never had the vaccines or boosters would I be alive today?
One thing I know for sure – I don’t go to a meat market to get my heart checked out nor would I go to a shoemaker to get my blood test…like DeSatan and his ‘foolmate’ are the most destructive people in all of Tallahassee in my opinion.
Skibum says
Haven’t these two morons already caused more than enough heartache, unnecessary hospitalizations and deaths of older and immune compromised FL citizens during the pandemic? Coming out once more in their official capacities and spreading more lies and sowing distrust in our scientific and medical professions is not only disgusting, but it should be cause for removal from public office! I hope people are intelligent enough to do what I have been doing regarding these two horrible examples of malpractice of public service… whatever they say, I do exactly the OPPOSITE!!!
Do your own thing. says
Why are people still listening to these fools? Who cares what DeSantis and his minions think? Think with your own brains people. Get a shot, don’t get one, no one really cares what you do. If you have questions, talk to a medical professional you trust. Is reality really this hard?
Alex says
How many more Floridians are going to die believing DeathSantis and his Quack Surgeon General. Don’t believe anything out of their mouths go by what your personal Doctor tells you, and it sure won’t be what these two are saying.
JW says
There is something rotten in the State of Florida!
I was educated many years ago (in Europe) and virology was part of it.
Shame on the surgeon general and the governor. Unfortunately voters for DeSantis (voting with their ignorant gut) outnumber those that have learned to critically think (with their brain). And it is getting worse!
Please, THINKERS, wake up and vote for Harris and down the line! Or many more people will suffer and die! Man, women and children!
Be embarrassed about this once greatest nation on earth!
John says
DeSantis is one that can’t be trusted especially with the idiot he hired as a surgeon general. Look how DeSantis is destroying the state. Pretty soon there won’t be any homeowners insurance companies in Florida and he has done nothing about that.
He is banning books and blocking school children from ready the history of Florida, I find that to be sick and very strange.
He is trying shove his religious beliefs with his political beliefs and the two just don’t mix and is one of the many reason he lost so badly trying to run for president.
Mothersworry says
Do you remember “refrigerated trailers” in hospital parking lots to hold the overflow of those who died from COVID or other cause’s made fatal by COVID? This was before there was a vaccine.
Talk about a tell, one smiles when he’s lieing and trump,when lieing moves his hands back and forth like he’s playing an accordion. The whole group of them will kill folks with false info
Deborah Coffey says
Well, we could ask the Florida Health Department how many people they got to kill themselves with Covid last time but, of course, they’d lie about that, too.
James says
DeathSantis won’t allow the Health Department to review the trus statics about COVID, he is constantly hiding the truth from the people of Florida and for that reason and that reason alone he can NEVER BE TRUSTED.
Samuel L. Bronkowitz says
Ladapo is actually still a member of the UF faculty. Imagine that.
DaleL says
There are so many lies and ignorance in the nonsense that “Dr.” Lapado puts out. First, there is the claim that mRNA vaccines might somehow change the DNA in human eggs and sperm. Think it through. If the mRNA vaccine can do that, what can an actual COVID-19 virus infection do? In this hypothetical scenario, preventing or limiting a viral infection by taking a vaccine would reduce the risk, not increase it.
Lapado claims: “Furthermore, this booster does not protect against the currently dominant strain, accounting for approximately 37% of infections in the United States.” That is a flat out lie. The booster is targeted at the dominant strain of several months ago. The dominant strain today is descended from the targeted strain. The booster does protect against today’s strain.
It is true that not everyone needs to get every single booster or vaccination. Recent studies have shown that the degree of malaise associated with a COVID-19 vaccination booster is associated with the preexisting level of immunity. Those who have a very strong reaction, may be as well off by following an every other booster routine. I know that I skipped one booster in 2021 because of my reaction to the first booster. I still have never to my knowledge gotten COVID-19.
This leads into another Lapado lie: “Throughout the pandemic, studies across geographic regions found that the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are associated with negative effectiveness after four to six months. As efficacy waned, studies showed that COVID-19 vaccinated individuals developed an increased risk for infection.” It is flat out false. Vaccinated people always have a reduced risk of infection and death compared with those who have not been vaccinated. Reduced antibody levels do not necessarily mean reduced effectiveness.
Kat says
Dale, I was infuriated by the same exact things. And then like I said, when you go to the source, it repudiates what he put in the newsletter.
I agree with what several people have said above, talk to your healthcare professional. You will probably find that most of us do not agree with the surgeon general of Florida. as part of our education, we had to learn how to interpret statistics and research studies. Apparently he has forgotten how to do so, never learned it in the first place, or is intentionally misrepresenting the facts at the bidding of DeSantis.
Endless dark money says
GOP is pretty much all misinformation and propaganda, their cult followers don’t care about truth or facts. Corruption runs deep in the united corporations of America.
Laurel says
I got the shots, and the boosters. Oh my God! I’M TURNING INTO A HAITIAN, FROM HAITIA! Please, Trump, don’t send me back to Venezuela, and save this woman from herself so that I won’t have anything to worry about ever again and I won’t have to vote ever again and it will be better for women than it has ever been in the history of all histories!
Can you imagine? DeSantis and the Trumpers are for the culling of the Trumplicans! They don’t seem to care much, do they?
This whole circus is strictly for creating a lack of trust in our system.