which is undoubtedly why DeSantis appointed him.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/10/21/ron-desantiss-controversial-surgeon-general-questions-safety-vaccines/
..."Since then, though, DeSantis has stood silently beside a speaker promoting the bogus conspiracy theory that vaccines change your RNA. And a week later, he appointed a new surgeon general with a controversial history that included not just opposing vaccine mandates, but downplaying the importance of vaccines. The doctor, Joseph Ladapo, also aligned with a fringe group of medical professionals, called America’s Frontline Doctors, which pushed hydroxychloroquine as a “cure” for the virus and later fought against the emergency authorization of the vaccines.
...
"I mean, you hear these stories, people telling you what’s been happening in their lives — nurses, pregnant women who are being forced to sort of put something in their bodies that we don’t know all there is to know about yet,” Ladapo said. “No matter what people on TV tell you, it’s not true. We’re going to learn more about the safety of these vaccines.”
....
And again, this kind of thing was probably foreseeable. Ladapo’s recent history when DeSantis hired him included aligning himself with a member of America’s Frontline Doctors, Stella Immanuel, who has claimed endometriosis was caused by sex with demons in one’s dreams. Even setting that aside, the news conference Ladapo appeared in with Immanuel involved claims that hydroxychloroquine was a “cure” for the coronavirus which, no matter what study you want to cherry-pick from or even if you believe the drug might have some benefit for coronavirus patients, simply has no basis.
This is merely the latest example in a consistent thread we’ve seen in the Republican Party throughout the pandemic, in which it provides platforms to or at least declines to correct those contributing to vaccine skepticism and even, in some cases, wild conspiracy theories."...(more)
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