Joseph Ladapo says anti-vaccine crusade was God’s plan. It cost him his peers’ trust

Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo marked the third anniversary of the pandemic in March by heaping praise on his boss, Gov. Ron DeSantis, for putting the “kibosh on vaccine mandates.” He then asserted that the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine “has a terrible safety profile.”

“At this point in the pandemic, I’m not sure anyone should be taking them,” he said.

This type of COVID rhetoric had helped the former University of California-Los Angeles associate professor catch the eye of the Florida governor with big political ambitions.

Since his appointment as Surgeon General in September 2021, Ladapo, 44, has made a reputation for himself as a prominent DeSantis ally for his stance against the COVID vaccine, masks, other pandemic containment measures, and gender-affirming care for transgender children.

“He’s one of the folks who has been with me battling Dr. Fauci for many years,” DeSantis said Thursday when introducing Ladapo to a cheering crowd at a news briefing where he signed three new health care bills, including one giving providers a right to deny patient services based on beliefs. The battle reference was to former U.S. Chief Medical Advisor Anthony Fauci, who served under Presidents Trump and Biden during the height of the COVID pandemic.

To examine Ladapo’s transformation from a doctor dedicated to noncontroversial research into an outspoken doubter of mainstream COVID-19 science, the South Florida Sun Sentinel and Orlando Sentinel interviewed 14 medical and research professionals throughout the state, including faculty members at the University of Florida; analyzed hundreds of pages of public records from UCLA, the Florida Department of Health, and UF; and reviewed dozens of op-eds and hundreds of social media posts by Ladapo.

His evolution placed him in a position of power that peers say came at the cost of the respect of many in the academic and medical communities. He now takes home a salary of about a half-million dollars annually, including what he earns from UF where he works as a professor in addition to his income as the state’s surgeon general.

Ladapo’s contract with UF requires him to spend 80% of his time in research and 20% of his time teaching at the school. But records show Ladapo has presented only two guest lectures, and official calendars reveal limited evidence of other work at UF during his 20-month tenure.

Not only is he not fulfilling his stated duties at UF, he’s facing a serious accusation of data manipulation from fellow health academics and researchers, and his colleagues say other professors would have faced termination if they had faced the same complaint. The University of Florida is not currently investigating these claims.

Five faculty members who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation said Ladapo’s UF colleagues are wary of collaborating with him. “They don’t want to work with him,” one said.

Ladapo did not respond to multiple interview requests nor an emailed list of questions from the South Florida Sun Sentinel and Orlando Sentinel.

While his UF peers keep a distance, Florida’s Republican lawmakers sang his praises earlier this month.

Ladapo was confirmed for another year as the state’s top public health official on May 4 with a 27-12 Florida Senate vote along party lines.

“Thank you for pulling back the curtain and showing us some of the data that public health officials not only knew existed but refused to give us over these past few years,” Jonathan Martin, a Republican senator representing Fort Myers, told Ladapo in front of other lawmakers.

Sen. Tina Polsky, a cancer survivor who had clashed with Ladapo in 2021 when he refused to wear a mask while meeting with her, accused him of causing harm in his role as Surgeon General, a claim some Florida parents have made, too.

She unsuccessfully implored her fellow lawmakers on the state committee on ethics and elections to remove him as Florida’s surgeon general.

“Since he has been in that position, I don’t feel like he’s done anything to help our health,” said Polsky, a Democrat representing parts of Broward and Palm Beach counties. “The child immunization rate is down. His focus on COVID is very dangerous. I think he is unfit for that position. He is a dangerous leader and he is hurting the health of Floridians.”

Scientists such as Henry I. Miller, a physician and molecular biologist and the Glenn Swogger Distinguished Fellow at the American Council on Science and Health, say the surgeon general has engaged in “professional misconduct that has harmed the citizens of Florida.” Miller believes Ladapo’s role as a UF professor could be his last.

“I think he will have great difficulty being hired by another university after this gig is over,” said Miller.

Scott Rivkees, the first Florida surgeon general appointed by DeSantis, does not agree with the guidance from his replacement – or his research methods. He has written several editorials and told a Sun Sentinel reporter he is concerned about the long-term consequences and “an erosion of respect in the experts.”

“I have concerns about the anti-vaccine messaging,” he said, adding that it puts older, vulnerable Floridians at risk. “We have to ask ourselves, who are we going to listen to? … With the rise of misinformation, look to your healthcare provider as your authority.”

Ladapo, who a Florida political analyst thinks could ride DeSantis’ coattails in his push toward the White House, and possibly become U.S. Surgeon General, is seen as the governor’s partner in fighting what they call the federal government’s fear-guided policies.

“If DeSantis can knock off Trump, it could become an issue of who is appointed as U.S. Surgeon General. There’s a high probability it would be Ladapo, assuming he wants the position,” said University of Central Florida political science professor Aubrey Jewett.

Ladapo, the person

Throughout his medical career Ladapo has published op-eds in national publications, but their tone began to change during the pandemic. He started speaking out against COVID-19 amid the first wave of lockdowns, about four years after he began working as an associate professor at UCLA. He was convinced that lockdowns were fear-based, ineffective policies. As a father of three boys, he railed against lockdowns for schoolchildren.

The cover of the book written by Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo (Courtesy)

“We must not let ill-informed, fear-fueled policy compound the casualties of COVID-19,” he wrote in USA Today in March 2020.

Ladapo said in his book, “Transcend Fear: A Blueprint for Mindful Leadership in Public Health,” published in August 2022, that he gained the courage to share his opinions on the COVID-19 response after a spiritual awakening from a five-day counseling session in Chinese meridian theory and the qualities of chi.

The son of Nigerian immigrants, Ladapo grew up in Louisiana and Georgia. He has a background in cardiovascular and HIV research and has held a medical license for about 12 years. He has a medical degree and a doctorate in health policy from Harvard, and although he has worked in several hospitals, he has leaned more toward research and academia.

His wife, he said, has had a big influence on his beliefs.

In a December interview with Republican politician Dr. Ben Carson, Ladapo said his wife encouraged him to speak out about the COVID-19 vaccine.

“Even though I’m chatting with you here, it’s really a mom-and-pop operation. It’s my wife and I,” Ladapo told Carson. “… She has been so vocal against these things for kids since … it was just a twinkle in the eyes of the CEOs of Pfizer and Moderna. She just knew that they were up to absolutely no good and she was right.”

Brianna Ladapo, who has a memoir coming out this year, describes herself in her Amazon author bio as an “intuitive spiritual healer, movement therapist, and teacher.” She majored in English at Harvard and has also studied traditional naturopathy, plant and herbal medicine, and shamanism.

Brianna Ladapo is also the one who convinced Ladapo to go to the counseling that he believes was God’s plan to give him the courage to speak out against COVID-19 policy. He believes the federal government is not giving Americans all the information they need.

In 2020, Ladapo signed the Great Barrington Declaration along with 47,000 other medical practitioners, which called for people to build an immunity to COVID through natural infection when possible in order to reach herd immunity, rather than isolating or wearing face masks.

These outspoken opinions that clashed with public health guidance ultimately isolated him from other professors at UCLA.

In a background check for Ladapo’s confirmation, a former supervisor told the Florida Department of Law Enforcement that he leads with opinions over evidence and his stances on COVID-19 upset his UCLA colleagues. That supervisor, Dr. Carol Mangione, wrote one of three recommendations that got him the state job.

“Prior to the pandemic, my relationship with UCLA had been very good,” Ladapo wrote in his book. “But by late summer 2021, as a result of the stances I had taken on COVID-19 policies, things had deteriorated into something resembling a bad marriage.”

Along came DeSantis.

Ladapo, the professor

When DeSantis announced Ladapo as Florida’s surgeon general, he also announced that the former UCLA-tenured associate professor would become a tenured professor at the University of Florida and spend 20% of his time doing that job. UF would pay his $15,000 relocation fee.

Ladapo makes $262,000 a year as a UF professor, including $75,000 for a role in which he’s charged with “developing policies and interventions to reduce healthcare disparities for UF Health.” He earns another $250,000 for his role as the state’s surgeon general, putting his total salary at $512,000 a year.

Ladapo’s contract at UF requires him to do research and clinical teaching, but the only documented research at UF is Institutional Review Board approval for a single study on reducing cardiovascular risk in HIV-infected adults, the university said in response to multiple public records requests.

When questioned about his job duties at UF, Ladapo told lawmakers on April 24 he has given academic talks and taught in two courses at the university – one on health policy and one on HIV. UF public records obtained by the Orlando Sentinel and South Florida Sun Sentinel indicate he gave a single guest lecture in each of those courses, which were taught by other professors.

He told lawmakers at the April 24 ethics committee meeting he has plans to teach in the future.

From the date of his hiring, fellow professors at UF expressed resentment.A group of them claimed his hiring process was rushed and political and asked for an investigation.

“The vetting of Dr Ladapo in the UF Department of Medicine was at best atypical and cursory and at worst a total sham. In my decades at UF I’ve never seen anything like it,” an anonymous faculty member said in a March 2022 report investigating whether the hiring process was normal.

The UF chairman of the board of trustees, Morteza Hosseini, a large DeSantis political donor, pushed for Ladapo to be hired, public records show. Ladapo was granted a full professorship with tenure within only two weeks of deliberation.

A fact-finding committee found the process “appeared to violate the spirit” of UF hiring regulations and procedures by not giving faculty sufficient time and information to evaluate him for tenure. The findings of this report did not change his position on the UF faculty.

Dr. Robert Cook, a UF professor who hosted Ladapo for a guest lecture in his graduate course on the epidemiology and biology of HIV/AIDS, said Ladapo was knowledgeable on the subject, gave a good talk and stayed afterward to speak with students.

Cook said Ladapo appears to be involved in the state’s continued efforts to end the HIV epidemic and seems to genuinely care about the issue.

“Politically, there’s a lot you can either agree with or disagree with. But in terms of how he has approached HIV in Florida, all I can say is I think he’s done a fair job with that,” Cook said.

Ladapo, the researcher

Ladapo came to the role of Florida’s surgeon general with a background as a researcher, doctor and college professor at top universities such as New York University and UCLA.

Before he arrived in Florida, Ladapo had been an author on about 80 peer-reviewed research papers, according to his resume. In their recommendation letters for his Florida position, his colleagues at UCLA called him “a nationally known expert in health services research with expertise in economics.”

In Florida, he accumulated tens of thousands of Twitter fans, and Tucker Carlson, the former Fox host of the highest-rated primetime cable news show in the U.S., announced he saw Ladapo as the head of the U.S. Health and Human Services someday.

“I cannot wait until you run HHS. I will come to your swearing-in. Doctor, thank you,” he told Ladapo on a December 2021 show.

Riding on the momentum of his rising fame, Ladapo began in early 2022 to issue guidance against COVID-19 testing and vaccination for healthy kids, contradicting guidance from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In March 2022, Florida became the first and only state to recommend against COVID-19 vaccines for healthy children and later became the only state not to pre-order vaccines for children under 5.

After researchers claimed he was misinterpreting their data in his recommendations, Ladapo turned to conducting his own research.

In two separate studies on behalf of the Florida Department of Health, Ladapo cast doubt on the safety of COVID mRNA vaccines and the research behind them. First came an October 2022 study by the FDOH that Ladapo cited to recommend against vaccines for young men due to cardiovascular risk.

The study states there is an increased risk of cardiac-related deaths in the four weeks following mRNA COVID-19 vaccination.

Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo at a 2021 bill signing with Gov. Ron DeSantis on Nov. 18, 2021, in Brandon. (Chris O’Meara/AP file)

However, public records from FDOH obtained by the Orlando Sentinel and South Florida Sun Sentinel but first reported by Politico and The Tampa Bay Times in April, revealed Ladapo removed statistical analysis from the October study prior to its publication that weakened evidence of an association between cardiac-related death and vaccination. He also removed evidence that the risks of cardiovascular issues from COVID-19 are higher than cardiovascular risks from the vaccine.

“His conclusions are not based on the statistics,” said Dr. Frederick Southwick, an infectious disease doctor with UF Health. “He fudged it so even when it wasn’t true, he said it was true.”

This could constitute scientific misconduct, Kenneth Goodman, founder and director of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine’s Institute for Bioethics and Health Policy and director of the university’s Ethics Programs, said in an email to the Orlando Sentinel.

“If any college professor found a student had done such a thing, one, he’d fail, and two, he would likely be reported to an academic council for disciplinary action. There are students who have done this and been expelled,” said Goodman, who helped develop a course in the Responsible Conduct of Research for the CDC.

An allegation of scientific fraud – like the one Ladapo is accused of by Florida ethics experts, other public health researchers, and fellow faculty members – can end careers. This type of conduct can taint the reputation of any institution or collaborators that the accused party has worked with, according to the National Institutes of Health.

“If a scientist fabricates data on an NIH grant, for example,” Goodman said, “it could lead to a ban on federal funding and a variety of internal disciplinary consequences.”

The Florida Office of Inspector General originally dismissed a November complaint of scientific fraud after an anonymous source failed to follow up. The Inspector did not respond to numerous requests by the Orlando Sentinel and South Florida Sun Sentinel on whether a new investigation is underway.

Ladapo tweeted this response in late April: “PhD-trained physician revises report based on his scientific expertise = ‘scandalous altering of results’ Fauci enthusiasts are terrified and will do anything to divert attention from the risks of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines.”

In defending his research and his conclusion, Ladapo has repeatedly pointed to a peer-reviewed study out of England that he said found similar results.

The study found very different results. Statistical analyses from this study concluded only non-mRNA COVID-19 vaccines carried an increased risk of cardiac death, and only in women. The study linked COVID-19, but not COVID-19 vaccines, to an increased risk of death.

This incident has sparked editorials calling him a menace, a nonprofit calling for an ethics investigation by the Florida Board of Medicine, and a UF professor asking the director of UF Research Integrity, Security and Compliance if there would be ramifications.

Public records show Cassandra Farley, the director of UF Research Integrity, Security and Compliance, said in a May 2 email to a faculty member that UF has no standing to consider these allegations because the research wasn’t conducted at the university.

“There is a lot of disgust and anger at the special treatment he has gotten,” said Kayser Enneking, an anesthesiologist and professor at UF College of Medicine. “He is a UF employee so he should be following the same rules as everyone else. If the data was manipulated, it is an incredibly serious infraction. It should be investigated and certainly could be grounds for firing.”

Ladapo’s October research was followed by a February analysis of the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System. He found that VAERS reports in Florida increased after COVID-19 vaccines became available. This prompted him to write a letter to the Food and Drug Administration and CDC and put out a health alert to Florida medical providers.

“The State Surgeon General is notifying the health care sector and public of a substantial increase in Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) reports from Florida after the COVID-19 vaccine rollout,” Ladapo wrote in his alert.

The CDC and FDA responded within hours of Ladapo’s warning, saying that the incidents included in the VAERS database are self-reported and unverified, leading to misinterpretation because of the sheer number of shots given out and the new awareness of the database.

“The claim … is incorrect, misleading and could be harmful to the American public,” a response letter signed by the FDA and CDC directors read.

On top of allegations of data manipulation, other leaders in the public health field, including FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf, have criticized his research in interviews with the Orlando Sentinel and South Florida Sun Sentinel as being poorly designed, lacking transparency and failing to undergo peer review.

Rivkees, the former state surgeon general, agrees and said the Florida’s Department of Health dataset isn’t big enough to draw the conclusions Ladapo made, noting that the FDA and CDC have a bigger dataset that found vaccines were safe.

Jason Salemi, an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of South Florida, said in an email to the Orlando Sentinel that public health surveillance is not always peer-reviewed, but he thinks Ladapo’s 2022 study would have benefited from it.

“External peer review, though an imperfect process, helps ensure that analyses of surveillance data and research are accurate, unbiased, and meet the standards of the scientific community. For this study, a reasonable expert in the field would have pointed out concerns about the analysis,” Salemi wrote.

Ladapo told lawmakers on April 24 that with public health surveillance there is nothing unusual about his study being issued without peer review.

The findings were unpopular, he said, because they were not what health officials, politicians and organizations such as the CDC and FDA wanted to hear: “It was recast as something that was unusual whereas it’s completely usual,” Ladapo told lawmakers.

Ladapo, the surgeon general

In response to requests from the Orlando Sentinel about what Ladapo has done for the department, FDOH spokesperson Nikki Whiting provided a list of ongoing projects, including the Opioid Recovery Network, HIV testing, and maternal health. She did not share Ladapo’s specific role, nor did he provide them when questioned by lawmakers in April.

The FDOH lists seven main health priorities ranging from Alzheimer’s to maternal health. Ladapo has been most visible on the podium at news briefings on COVID-19.

Critics assert that Ladapo’s crusade against mRNA vaccines for kids has contributed to a drop in overall childhood immunization in the state. While the rate has fallen from 96.1% in 2019 to 94.3% in 2021 in Florida, vaccination rates are dropping similarly nationwide.

Florida’s COVID-19 vaccine rate was on par with the rest of the nation during the shots’ initial rollout, but now lags behind other states, CDC data indicates. About 17% of U.S. residents have gotten an updated booster shot, compared with about 12% of Florida residents.

COVID-19 vaccination rates for children 6 months to 4 years old range from 2% to 36% by state. Florida is at 4%, according to a February CDC report.

Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo attends a news conference with Gov. Ron DeSantis on Jan. 3, 2022 at Broward Health Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale. DeSantis announced that more monoclonal antibody treatments would be coming to Florida with additional sites in South Florida. (Tribune News Service file)

Outside of COVID but still in lockstep with DeSantis, Ladapo has been at the forefront of the clash in Florida over gender-affirming care for minors.

He released a memo to healthcare providers in April 2022 advising against social gender transition, surgery puberty blockers and hormone therapy, and led the state efforts to block Medicaid coverage for such treatments. DeSantis had been pushing anti-transgender laws for years, alongside other Republican politicians.

“It’s just a highly experimental therapy that has very poor evidence and I think is totally inappropriate to be doing with children,” Ladapo said in a state legislative committee meeting on April 24.

Ladapo’s positions on gender-affirming treatment contradict those of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association.

As surgeon general, he has been named in a March lawsuit from families for his role in discouraging gender-affirming care for minors.

During his tenure as surgeon general, Ladapo has maintained an active Twitter presence, responding to critics or criticizing the federal government. He also uses the social platform to promote healthy behaviors through the Healthier You campaign and shares snapshots of his vegetable-heavy cooking and his morning swim with his 160k followers.

Often he is at news conferences promoting Ron or Casey DeSantis’ health-related initiatives such as funding for cancer research, mental health or nursing education.

While Ladapo participates in announcing these initiatives, his focus has largely been on COVID-19.

Ladapo continues to stand by his positions and says alternative perspectives in medicine should be welcomed.

“I love the discussion that we’ve stimulated. Isn’t it great when we discuss science transparently instead of trying to cancel one another?” he tweeted in October amid criticism of his research.

If DeSantis becomes the Republican nominee for U.S President, a national audience may decide.

Political analysts have previously told the Sun Sentinel that DeSantis’ pandemic strategy will be pivotal in his campaign for the U.S. President. DeSantis often makes fun of former leader of the U.S. pandemic response Fauci and praises his own decisions on lockdowns, mandates and COVID treatments that flout federal public health guidance.

“At the time, everything we were doing in Florida, we were getting attacked by bureaucrats like Fauci … ” DeSantis said at a news briefing Thursday, “But we stuck to our guns because we believed we were doing the right thing for the state.”

Ladapo, with his Ivy League pedigree, medical background, and refusal to yield to criticism of his positions, gives legitimacy to DeSantis’ statements. Wearing his signature bright-colored shirts, he stands tall by DeSantis’ side at coronavirus news conferences, as he did Thursday.

In introducing Ladapo, DeSantis said: “You’ve seen him fighting the good fight not just on behalf of evidence-based medicine but on behalf of medical freedom.”

At the podium, Ladapo made fun of public health officials who had different views on COVID vaccines and lockdown supporters. “These people were on the other side … they had media with them and unfortunately many of my medical colleagues. They were one voice and they were strutting, chest out, with ‘this is what we have to do.’ And, now all those people cannot run fast enough away from these positions. They are a little late and very wrong.”

Ladapo went on to warn the audience against proponents of COVID precautions: “All that stuff is prime and ready for rollout out again next time they even get the whiff of an opportunity.”

Going forward, will an anti-COVID vaccine medical professional be an asset or liability to DeSantis as he tries to appeal beyond his conservative base in an expected presidential campaign?

“Could someone attacking DeSantis make that an issue, I think they could,’” said Jewett, the political science professor at UCF. “There are plenty of questions about some of the actions he has taken as Florida’s surgeon general. I can see effective ads built around those actions.”

Sun Sentinel health reporter Cindy Goodman can be reached at cgoodman@sunsentinel.com or Twitter @cindykgoodman. Caroline Catherman is the Health reporter for the Orlando Sentinel, and can be reached at ccatherman@orlandosentinel.com