A Harvard trained doctor and current University of California, Los Angeles, researcher who has been named Florida’s new surgeon general is himself a critic of mask and vaccine mandates.
Gov. Ron DeSantis on Sept. 21 announced the appointment of Dr. Joseph Ladapo as the Sunshine State’s top physician, the Miami Herald reported.
Blasting the vaccine as an ineffective mean to ending the COVID-19 pandemic, Ladapo vowed not to resort to scare tactics in his new post.
“The state should be promoting good health, and vaccination isn’t the only path for that,” Lapado said, the Miami Herald reported. “It’s been treated almost like a religion, and that’s just senseless.”
Instead, he advocates for protecting individual rights over community-based precautions against the coronavirus pandemic, the Miami Herald reported.
Lapado succeeds Dr. Scott Rivkees, whose contract expires at the end of the month, the Associated Press reported.
Lapado’s stance aligns with that of DeSantis.
The governor, a Republican, has been one of the most vocal critics of measures to curb COVID-19, having engaged in quarrels with lower-level Florida leaders who implemented such things as mask orders, according to the Miami Herald.
As an alternative to vaccines, Lapado encouraged to public to adopt a healthy lifestyle to keep from contracting the disease.
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