Ladapo's anti-COVID vaccine nonsense puts Floridians at risk

Ladapo more dangerous than COVID vaccine

Just when you think it’s impossible for our state surgeon general to more explicitly demonstrate his inability to understand the danger of his actions, he manages to reach a new low.

Not content with risking his own health (and that of others he comes in close contact with) by declining to take a COVID-19 shot, Dr. Joseph Ladapo somehow sees it as his mandate to continue attempts to influence others to do likewise.

From the Mayo Clinic: The different types of COVID-19 vaccines, including mRNA.

His latest attack may be his most bizarre. Ladapo describes the mRNA vaccine as the “anti-Christ” of all products, with claims it could harm our DNA, a claim debunked by a wide variety of exerts in the field.

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Forrest Gump's line, “Stupid is as stupid does,” was a reminder to judge others not just by what they say, but what they do. By either measure, Ladapo’s comments are troubling.

Steve Higgins, Sarasota

Trump tough enough to fight US enemies

Too many Americans conveniently forget that we’re in a dogfight for our very survival with four of the cruelest, meanest attack dogs in the world. I refer to the heads of Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.

Make no mistake: They want to destroy our role in the world, our democracy, our way of life.

As much as I detest Donald Trump’s conceit, lying and possibly illegal shenanigans, he’s our meanest, toughest dog and the only politician who will stand up against these adversaries.

You don’t send Chihuahuas like President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris against a bulldog. You send a Doberman/Rottweiler like Trump.

We have to have a ferocious, determined fighter and Biden/Harris are not up to the task.

Thomas G. Moore, Bradenton

Pay attention to warnings of dictatorship

I am always interested and often amused by your choice of guest columnists. But the one Dec. 28, “The harm of anti-Trumpers pushing hysterical rhetoric,” has me scratching my head.

Peter Berkowitz is obviously too young (64) and steeped in the bubble of ultraconservatism to remember the ease with which two famous individuals who were enamored of power slipped their countries into fascism in the late ’20s and early ’30s in Germany and Italy. (Put aside Yugoslavia, Romania and Russia.)

As an attorney with a doctorate in poli-sci from Yale, I would think Berkowitz would be above offering false equivalences about Michael Anton's “The flight 93 Election” and The Washington Post columnist Robert Kagan’s piece warning of the loss of democracy if former President Donald Trump returns to the White House.

Berkowitz’s assertion that there is “scarce evidence of democracies deteriorating into dictatorships without the cooperation of the military, government bureaucracy, the business world media and universities” is painfully ignorant.

Column by district superintendent Bills aim to streamline school regulations

Note to Mr. Berkowitz: That is exactly what happened in Europe to bring us World War II and exactly the kind of effort Trump has tried – and, thus far, thankfully failed – to accomplish right here in the good old USA!

Stephen L. Japhe, University Park

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Ladapo continues campaign of nonsense about COVID-19 vaccines