Dr.
Joseph Ladapo — a UCLA medical professor who has published controversial articles about “COVID
mania” and is an outspoken critic of lockdowns, mask and vaccine mandates and
other mitigation measures — has been named as Florida's
new surgeon general, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Tuesday.
Ladapo,
who was hired Monday at the University of Florida (UF) College of Medicine,
said he wants to usher in a new era of battling the COVID-19 pandemic in
Florida, one that sets a model for other states to follow.
“Florida
will completely reject fear. Fear is done,” Ladapo said during a press briefing
after the regularly scheduled Florida Cabinet meeting in the Capitol.
Ladapo
also said he would be clear that the Department of Health draws a distinction
between science and opinion: “People have been taking the science and
misrepresenting it,” he said, hinting at mainstream public health officials who
have been setting policy for the nation.
“You
will know when we are talking about data and opinion. Never lose sight that
public health is not just one thing. It is not just about the amount of
COVID at a single location."
When
asked about what mitigation strategies he supported for school children, Ladapo
dodged the question.
"I’m
discussing that with my team in terms of recommendations," he said.
"It’s complicated."
Ladapo
said getting vaccinated is a matter of personal choice.
"There
is nothing special about them compared to any other preventive measure,"
he said. "The great thing about the vaccine for COVID-19 is that it
prevents the risk of serious illness. Fantastic. People get to make the choice
about what they want to do with that information."
But
he said vaccination is not the only path to good health.
"It’s
been treated almost like a religion and that’s just senseless," Ladapo
said. "We support measures to good health. That’s vaccination, losing
weight, exercising more, eating more fruits and vegetables, everything."
The
news of Ladapo's appointment drew immediate praise from Jenny Beth Martin,
honorary chair of Tea Party Patriots Action, a national nonprofit fighting
medical mandates.
“I
have had the honor and privilege of working with Dr. Ladapo over the past year,
and I have seen first-hand that he is a well-researched, well-credentialed
medical doctor with strong character and leadership traits,” Martin said.
“He
is well-spoken, thoughtful, and as his Wall Street Journal op-eds have
demonstrated, he has a gift for communicating medical information to the public
in a factual and persuasive manner."
DeSantis
said his appointment as surgeon general and his hire at UF were two separate
things, and based solely on his credentials.
"I
don't think anyone who interviewed him knew he was going to be appointed to
this," DeSantis said. "It wasn't anything we had done and
obviously we wanted to see how that shaped out before we formally offered
him."
For
UF, which U.S. News & World Report ranked the fifth best public university
in the country, "to get someone of Joe's caliber" from third-ranked
UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) is a major coup, he added.
"I’m
happy he got this job and I think he’s going to do a great job, but that's a
big deal," DeSantis said. "Any university would be foolish not to
want to get this guy."
Like his predecessor, Scott Rivkees, also a professor at the UF College of Medicine, Ladapo will split his duties between his professorship at UF and his state role as surgeon general and secretary of Florida's Department of Health.