Is anyone going to stop Ladapo?
Is anyone going to stop Ladapo?
The AFLDS Florida Surgeon General keeps receiving slaps on the wrist for his spread of political public health disinformation
Dr. Joseph Ladapo, the founding member of America’s Frontline Doctors currently serving as Governor Ron DeSantis’s Florida Surgeon General, received a response from the US Food and Drug Administration and Center for Disease Control. He had written the agencies about concerns over adverse effects of the mRNA Covid vaccines while peddling unverified VAERs data in official reports. The response from the FDA and CDC warned Ladapo of the risk he posed to public health by continuing this partisan information warfare on the proven safe and effective Covid vaccines.
This recent admonishment joins a list of weak attempts at reining in the rogue physician who has used his position as the state surgeon general to a 2024 presidential candidate to push QAnon conspiracies. This is dangerous not just for public health but for democracy itself. Preservation of public health and democracy have not been focuses of Ladapo’s AFLDS - created by the Council for National Policy and Tea Party Patriots to minimize Covid/uphold Trump’s failing HCQ narrative for Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign and (for now) run by insurrectionist physician and ReAwaken America touring cast member Dr. Simone Gold.
Prior to Covid, Ladapo and Gold both worked at UCLA. He would go on to work in the Trump White House prior to his post with DeSantis. Ladapo’s former UCLA boss strongly voiced concerns over his appointment as DeSantis’s Florida Surgeon General. As part of his state position, Ladapo became an employee of the University of Florida who also issued a rebuttal to his Covid-19 disinformation campaign but admit they lack any power to stop him. While the medical boards have the authority and duty to discipline their licensees, DeSantis has benefitted from this being a states issue he can exert his control over. If he and AFLDS want to go federal in 2024 they will have to deal with the reality of both his and AFLDS’s reputation outside of Florida.
Simone Gold is finally being held accountable by the California Medical Board for her insurrection participation. While the CMB has yet to punish Gold for her spread of deadly disinformation throughout the pandemic, the org is suffering some overdue accountability in other states. AFLDS is named in a hydroxychloroquine wrongful death lawsuit in Nevada. Fellow founding member Dr. Ryan Cole’s Washington medical license is in jeopardy per the Washington Medical Commission letter sent to the pathologist. Despite many complaints, he has retained both his Idaho license and public health position. Like Ladapo, Cole was a political appointment and has benefitted from unearned governmental protection. Their less high-profile AFLDS colleague Dr. Kathleen Cullen did not get the same protection from the Florida medical board which, as MedPage Today reported in April 2022, listed her license as “delinquent” following her pushing of early treatment grift.
Neither hydroxychloroquine nor ivermectin, both endorsed by AFLDS, work against Covid. Hydroxychloroquine for Covid was based off of French physician Dr. Didier Raoult’s studies now being investigated criminally. What both drugs have been effective at doing during the pandemic, aside from generating revenue of course, is sow distrust in public health institutions. That is the political goal of the Council for National Policy behind Trump and AFLDS. The dark money umbrella organization is tied to other astroturf groups like Moms For Liberty which sponsored CPAC alongside AFLDS last week. Also last week, Gold’s ReAwaken America colleague Mike Flynn directed followers to call in Covid-related threats to a Sarasota hospital he has voiced interest in privatizing. Outrage over this incredibly shocking behavior has not been expressed by DeSantis and Ladapo’s new public health “integrity” committee. Their silence is compliance.
Silence from medical boards has been compliant in welcoming in anti-truth extremism in American politics, post-Insurrection. Their continued silence puts science and reality-based medicine in danger. How many different organizations and academic institutions need to voice their concern for the boards to act to stop AFLDS and Ladapo?
Debunking is great but is anyone going to do actually do anything to protect medicine from Ladapo?
