By Diane Roberts
The Quack Ladapo doesn’t want you to get the new Covid-19 booster shot. It’s terrible, horrible, no good and very bad.
It hasn’t been tested! Or if it has, certain secret clinical trials reveal it could kill you or turn you schizo or maybe cause your extremities to fall off in the street, which is exactly what the CDC, the FDA, and Anthony Fauci, Doctor of Doom, want!
No, he won’t show you the lab reports. You wouldn’t understand them, unless you possess the peculiar genius of the Quack, Gov. Ron DeSantis, or perhaps Tucker Carlson, who knows ferr shurr that Fauci actually engineered the virus to murder Americans and somehow make billions of dollars.
So, no booster jab for you, fellow Floridian! Unless you’re over 65. Then you can get one. What the hell: You’re going to die soon anyway. (The Florida Department of Health has actually recommended against the booster for younger people, but shots are available for them nevertheless.)
Once he determined the Quack would be just the kind of boot-licking anti-science surgeon general he wanted, Ron DeSantis and his pet University of Florida Board of Trustees forced UF to hire Ladapo with tenure and a fat salary.
Before he landed the gig, the Quack used to work at the UCLA School of Medicine, where many of his colleagues were glad to see the back of him.
His former supervisor gave him the kind of reverse reference that would put the kibosh on a normal person’s job application. Asked whether Florida should hire the Quack, the supervisor said, “No.”
Unicorn horn
In 2021, when the Quack landed in Florida, it was like returning to a simpler, much stupider time, when docs prescribed drinking a little ground unicorn horn mixed with water as a cure for the plague.
Or if you were fresh out of unicorns (or the virgins you need to catch them), you could always try chicken butt.
Henry VIII’s barber-surgeon Thomas Vicary recommended taking a live chicken, plucking all the feathers around its rear end, and strapping said bare-fanny fowl onto the affected area of the body. When the chicken started to get sick, you took her off, gave her a wash, and strapped her back on to continue the treatment.
This continued until either the patient or the chicken died.
This kind of thing is right up the Quack’s alley, so to speak.
He’d been a member of a group called America’s Frontline Doctors, though what — other than idiocy — they were on the front line of has never been made clear.
Fellow members included an ophthalmologist from Michigan with an expired medical license and a woman who said the cause of most gynecological problems was “demon sperm.”
As we all know, many women experience unwanted sexual attentions from an incubus. You’re lying there asleep and, next thing you know, a malevolent spirit has had his way with you, infecting you with who knows what icky supernatural sex germs.
The Quack hasn’t commented on Dr. Demon Sperm, but evidently admires Simone Gold, another “Frontline Doctor,” gushing that her gift was bringing “light into a place where there was mostly darkness and fear and panic.”
She didn’t bring light when she broke into the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, she brought a megaphone, into which she ranted dementedly.
She was later sentenced to 60 days in jail.
No way FDA
A few weeks ago, Ladapo phoned DeSantis. Or DeSantis phoned Ladapo.
It was live streamed it on Twixxer or whatever that thing calls itself this week and given a title: “No Way FDA.”
Five days later, UF Health blithely ignored the Quack and advised the university community to get the covid booster.
Yes way FDA.
Along with defending the indefensible, the Quack enjoys fiddling data.
An April 2023 study revealed that the Covid vaccine did not increase the risk of cardiac disease. The Quack altered the study to say the opposite.
He remains convinced that mainstream medicine, the kind that involves years of biology, chemistry, and physiology, all those exams and certifications, the replicable clinical trials and the peer reviews, all that elitist training, is totally overrated.
Who’s to say that horse de-wormer, strong light, or even good old American Lysol aren’t as effective at warding off Covid as Big Pharma’s fancy vaccines, some of which were manufactured by sinister foreigners with university degrees?
Experts and other literate people were unimpressed when Ron DeSantis ordered one million doses of hydroxychloroquine.
Ladapo thought that was just fine. Floridians not so much: 980,000 doses may still be stuffed in a warehouse somewhere.
But the Quack didn’t laugh. The Quack knew that sometimes a once well-regarded doctor must destroy his medical career to support his governor.
Sometimes a whole administration must risk Deep State derision and a high mortality rate among its constituents to own the libs. Especially if the head of that administration is running for president.
The Quack is doing his job — which is to be a toadying sycophant.
‘Wonderful heart’
On Sept. 7, a distressed Black man confronted DeSantis after a white supremacist shot three people in Jacksonville, saying, “You have allowed people to hunt people like me in broad daylight.”
DeSantis, true to form, responded like a four-year-old confronted with conclusive evidence he did indeed steal that cookie, barking, “You don’t get to come here and blame me for some madman. I’m not going to accept it.”
The Quack was quick to defend his boss, suggesting the citizen challenging DeSantis had mental problems and citing what he called (with a straight face, y’all!) DeSantis’“wonderful heart.”
Demonstrating gubernatorial-level inarticulacy, he added, “It’s terrible that people take advantage of the fact that he’s a different color from the poor victims of that tragedy.” Ron DeSantis: victim of racism.
Scott Rivkees, Florida’s former surgeon general never understood the DeSantis administration isn’t about health or welfare or reality. Just power.
Remember that press conference in spring 2020 when he reminded Floridians to mask up and socially distance until the vaccines became available? One of the governor’s staff swiftly escorted him out of the room.
Rivkees was barely heard from again. The next year he fled Florida for a job at Brown University.
Now a bunch of (undoubtedly woke) researchers at Yale have produced a study suggesting that Republicans in Ohio and Florida experienced a “significantly higher” death rates than Democrats in the months after Covid-19 vaccines became nationally available.
The Quack probably won’t believe it. But maybe his boss should take it seriously: Killing your voters is no way to win an election.
Diane Roberts is an 8th-generation Floridian, born and bred in Tallahassee. Educated at Florida State University and Oxford University in England, she has been writing for newspapers since 1983, when she began producing columns on the legislature for the Florida Flambeau. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Times of London, the Guardian, the Washington Post, the Oxford American, and Flamingo. She has been a member of the Editorial Board of the St. Petersburg Times–back when that was the Tampa Bay Times’s name–and a long-time columnist for the paper in both its iterations. She was a commentator on NPR for 22 years and continues to contribute radio essays and opinion pieces to the BBC. Roberts is also the author of four books.
Demarcus Washington says
Talk about the man as a superstitious witch doctor … even brought up “chicken” like some foolish Santeria shamanism… I’m sure him being a Black Man has nothing to do with this at all..
Judith Michaud says
I have lived here nearly 28 years and I never have seen such a mess. Why are the voters allowing these unfit people to be elected ? It doesn’t surprise me that our Surgeon General was hired by our current Governor !! People of the same always flock together ! Poor Florida ! A beautiful state with an ugly government !
Justbob says
Florida…where science goes to die.
Pogo says
@Publix band-aid, on my Covid spike booster injection site
Beautiful.
Whiplash says
This article is what you would expect from a sad, lonely, washed up person who is looking for relevance and acceptance in todays world. The article is nothing but about hate from a progressive left wing journalist.
Steve says
Surgeon General LAPDOG LOL I wouldn’t let him treat my dead dog
The Sour Kraut says
While your article is humorous, the subject is anything but. Ladapo’s nonsense is killing people. Something he took an oath not to do. His medical license should be revoked and he should be removed from his position as chief witch doctor of Florida.
DaleL says
In reading this story, my immediate reaction was that it had to be way over the top. I mean, calling the Surgeon General of Florida “Quack Ladapo” is quite a statement. However, the story has links to support the accusations against Ladapo. After reviewing many of the links and the mRNA COVID-19 recommendation of the Florida Health Guidance for COVID-19 Boosters, September 13, 2023, my impression is: What the Hell is wrong with these people, specifically Ladapo!!!!
The mRNA vaccines induce, for a short period of time, the cells in the vicinity of the injection, mostly muscle cells, to produce the protein (COVID-19 spike protein) for which they are encoded. Changing the specific protein which is encoded, as in the most recent booster, does NOT change the overall characteristics of the vaccine. It does NOT create a new vaccine.
It is true that over 95% of all Americans have antibodies to various strains of COVID-19 due to either previous vaccinations and/or infections. However, despite this high level of immunity, people are still contracting COVID and in some cases becoming seriously ill. With very few exceptions, anyone who has not contracted the latest variant within the last 6 months, should get the updated booster.
But what do I know? I do have a degree in a biological field from long long ago from a university that is far far away. I did work for some 30 years in public health (Ohio), but I’ve been retired for 15 years. My wife and I got our updated flu and COVID shots a couple of weeks ago. Hundreds of millions of people in the USA and around the world have gotten the mRNA vaccines.
Larry says
Thanks for speaking out about this deranged governor and Lapado. DeSantis and his sycophants have done great harm to the people of Floriduh. This type of thinking unfortunately is spreading like a virus throughout our country. I wish I knew the solution. Keep up the good work.
Deborah Coffey says
LOL. Great satire. Did the QUACK make his pronouncement before or after the Covid Vaccine won the Nobel Prize?
Cin says
All funning aside, Lapado is a danger to Floridians as well as DeSatan. It is unthinkable that people fall for what they say.
JOSEPH HEMPFLING says
stop DRINKING the KOOL-AIDE !
Anthony says
DeathSantis would hire a quack Surgeon General, he proves daily he is unfit to be a public servant. No wonder his ratings continue to decline every time he opens his mouth.
Me says
Only vote for winners and DeathSantis isn’t one of them. He is as phony as a $3.00 bill. He never discusses the high cost of homeowners insurance in the state. He never speaks about how he is going to improve the state and not discriminate against in his outrageous religious beliefs. He is not of faith but of power and greed.
Tim Miller says
The Science you follow has been wrong for years. You people are not looking at the data that is right in front of you! Adverse effects to the vaccines are admitted by the vaccine companies, CDC and others. What did Biden say about the newest vaccine?????? He said “this one works”. How can you see all of this and make such an idiotic comment?
Philip says
Oh? Reveal your sources of the author being “a sad, lonely, washed up person who is looking for relevance and acceptance in todays world.’
Thank you
JimBob says
Precisely which Florida university has tainted its reputation by having Ladapo as a tenured professor?
Philip says
I’m sure it doesn’t. The author also mentioned unicorns and virgins. That’s ok, isn’t it?
Also, did you you click on the link , ‘chicken butts’? You might learn something if you do.
DaleL says
The Florida Department of Health reports that 91,178 Florida residents have died as a result of COVID-19. http://ww11.doh.state.fl.us/comm/_partners/covid19_report_archive/covid19-data/covid19_data_latest.pdf
Mind you, this information is from Lapado’s Florida Department of Health, not the CDC. I have not seen any reporting that even a single person in Florida has died as a result of getting a mRNA COVID vaccination.
A COVID infection includes the risk of DEATH. A COVID vaccination does not.
Laurel says
Tim: You should be careful who you call idiots. No one said the vaccines are perfect, but if you listen to bleach injection advocating politicians, and not the medical community, then I question your intelligence.
My husband and I have had all but the latest vaccine, which we plan to get, and we have not yet contracted covid. Others have, and thanks to the mRNA vaccines, survived, and we no longer have refrigerated trucks to hold all the bodies of people who had not yet had the vaccine available to them, and died. We no longer have multiple tents in hospital parking lots to house the quickly growing number of infected.
No one knew how to handle this new pandemic and had to, actually, wing it. You have no idea, apparently, how lucky we were to have mRNA nearly ready to go, though it had not yet been through all the extensive testing required.
Whatever you feel is wrong with these vaccines, they sure beat the hell out of suffocating to death, don’t you think?
jakie says
Why should I take another vaccine for Covid 19 (you know, the Wuhan Virus) ? It doesn’t stop you, or me, from getting it, it doesn’t stop you, or me, from transmitting it. A vaccine is “a substance used to stimulate immunity to a particular infectious disease or pathogen”, yet, it appears none of the “Covid 19” vaccines do this. “This year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman for their work on mRNA vaccines, crucial to combat the spread of COVID-19”. Yet, here we are, directed by the “Biden Administration” to counter a new wave of infections. Lapado may be a quack, however, the federal government and the CDC, are complicit is this bullshit.
Tired of it says
And your qualifications are? What data? Be specific, cite sources, because the data I am looking at says vaccines save lives. Where does the CDC say vaccines don’t work? The ironic thing about this is that it is the DeSantis suppoters who will get sick and even die. Cleaning out the gene pool.
Linda says
I have a friend in S. Fla who pays $7k a year for Homeowners, not including flood. This after dumping loads of cash into hurricane proofing for the home. The windows, the garage door. What the hell?
Science says
Argj- all meds have side effects & some r horrific, like anal leakage! That doesn’t mean the benefits DON’T out weigh the negatives. Chemo is a bitch, but it has bought many a person time. Polio isn’t a threat any more (although that got a bit sketchy w/ anti vaxers), thank you science! Have you ever met anyone who lost family members to scarlet fever? Thanks science & all those that made the right choice. Science can anly give a straight line, but there are always those that fall above & below that line. I believed science knew my mom had about 5 years of grace w/ bone marrow for ovarian cancer. Pretty dead on, but there are always anomalies of more time or less. Msy you or your loved ones never have to go through the grief of past diseases b/c enough people believed in science to eradicate it. Didn’t work perfectly for all, but I hope you get my point.
No voice says
This person wasn’t elected but appointed. We don’t get a voice in FL
john stove says
With all medicines, vaccines and treatments a certain percentage of the population will have side effects. Some people cant take statins, some cant tolerate Tylenol, some have reactions that cause them to go to the emergency room, some people have unknown and undisclosed medical conditions that cause them to react in a way that could not have been prevented.
But to come out and actively tell people NOT TO TAKE the vaccine?
The cult of the Republitards, Ron Dumbsantis and the MAGA cult can do what they want and contract Covid and hopefully become extinct…meanwhile the rest of us will trust the real medical professionals and follow the science.
I have never seen so many imbecilic morons in one place at one time….
John Stove says
Thats it?….thats all you got to refute the sources she has cited and you can look up? Why dont you just say..”what about Hillarys’ emails?”…….
Take your tin foil hat off and let some knowledge creep in to your brain…..
The dude says
You’re absolutely right.
We should all listen to you instead.
What are your scientific credentials again?
The dude says
A government that 100% reflects the people it represents.
Robert Joseph Fortier says
I’ve gotta say, I am so tired of the geniuses calling my state “Floriduh”.
If you despise our state, you can always move to a state more in tune with your values.
There are 49 others to choose from.
ban the GOP says
Its the republican way, sabatoge any agency or program that helps citizens. then just blame it on the liberals. Dont even need facts or evidence. Public health is woke.
Wow says
Are you a data scientist? What data are you researching?
endless dark money says
the fl republicans just lost a lawsuit for manipulating covid data. Remember the girl who posted the real numbers and they fired her and raided her house. haha that must be the kind of “freedum” magats talk about. Profits over people.
Philip says
And your comment is directed to whom?
Laurel says
Robert: Yes, I agree. The thing is, most of these folks calling our beautiful state “Floriduh” is from elsewhere. Also, when people gripe about how bad drivers are here, well, same thing. They are from all over the country, and all over the world.
Laurel says
his mirror
Laurel says
Jakie: Ooo, there’s that Biden thing again.
Just exactly how is “the federal government and the CDC complicit in this bullshit”?
Look up the show “NOVA” on the subject of mRNA vaccines. It’s several years old, but I’m sure it is still out there somewhere. It explains in great detail how mRNA works, and this was years before Covid19. You can’t think that killed or altered virus vaccines are the end all; science moves on. The mRNA style vaccine is showing great promise as a cure for sickle cell anemia, and may be a cure for cancer.
If you don’t want to take it, don’t. I will.
Laurel says
The whole problem here is that a very good, promising vaccine has been politicized. That’s really shameful.
Philip says
Not 100% reflection. It doesn’t reflect upon the percentage of people that did not vote for DeSantis. Not at all.
Ray W. says
A couple of years ago, Scientific American published an article about cellular time rhythms and how cells produce certain proteins and enzymes in abundance at some times of day, but in lesser amounts or not at all at other times. Apparently, most people are capable of producing an enzyme that metabolizes the portion of the Tylenol medication that might otherwise damage a person’s liver; it renders the potentially poisonous substance inert. At other times during the day, when production of the enzyme is at a lull, consuming Tylenol is much more dangerous. Since people have different rhythms of life, no two people produce the enzyme in exactly the same amounts at exactly the same times.
Ray W. says
I looked for the site Tim Miller might be referring to. Yes, the NIH has an open-source site on its webpage that anyone can post to. It is not scientifically vetted for validity. Anyone can post anything to it. I read an article about the number of deaths and medical side effects, but it was so filled with typos and logical fallacies that it was obviously a planted article with no scientific value.
Deborah Coffey says
Right. That’s why the Covid Vaccine just won the Nobel Prize. Everyone on Earth is stupid except for you?!
Deborah Coffey says
And, if you love DeSantis, we could suggest Somalia for you!
Whiplash says
Actually you are wrong and are spreading mis-information! The Covid 19 vaccines did not win the Nobel Prize for medicine! The prize was for the process developed many years ago that, “enabled the development of mRna vaccines” such as effective, Covid 19 vaccines not for the Covid 19 vaccines!!
Laurel says
Wow, Deborah! That was way off. Because someone didn’t like our state being called a derogatory name, he must “…love DeSantis…” and “…we could suggest Somalia for…” him?
I’ve lived in Florida for 71 years, and I grew up hearing “Ft. Liquordale” and “Ft. Lollipop” but never heard “Floriduh” until the newbies got here in the last few years. I don’t like it, and if people think of this state as a place they don’t like, then maybe it’s them who should go to Somalia.
By the way, I don’t like DeSantis.
REPUBLICANS_ARE_TRAITORS says
Ladapo’s off the wall approach to managing COVID19 along with DeSantis’ horrible leadership have proven to be ethnicity agnostic in enabling the virus, actually. Whether my late white MAGA antivax Citrus County cousin-in-law or a dear African-American PhD friend of a friend of mine, COVID19 claimed them, and tragically so many more, not just in our little red state but worldwide.
Thanks to the stupidity in Tallahassee, the death toll continues to rise as the powers that be, those anti-science Republican-in-name-only fools, favor management vs prevention.
Philip says
Three years ago, this date, 12/24/20, I was down with covid. Vaccination was not yet available. I don’t even remember Christmas day. There was nothing I could do but get through it.
There were no “vaccine wars” because it wasn’t an option.
It’s all so foolish. I could have died, I didn’t. Instead, I lived to take the vaccine when it became available. I’m still alive after 3 injections and I had no issues with them.
Do as you wish. It’s your decision and your consequences good or bad.
Happy Holidays to you. 💉