There were no real doubts about the outcome. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis chose Dr. Joseph Ladapo to be the state’s new surgeon general; the Republican governor’s allies control the state Senate; and GOP state senators are generally in the habit of giving DeSantis what he wants.
But given the series of allegations surrounding the controversial physician, it was hard not to wonder whether at least some Florida Republicans would be uncomfortable with confirming Ladapo. As The Miami Herald reported, that’s not what happened.
The Florida Senate on Wednesday voted to confirm Dr. Joseph Ladapo, Gov. Ron DeSantis’ pick to be the state’s surgeon general. The party-line 24-15 vote was the culmination of a contentious approval process for Ladapo, who faced hours of questions from two different Senate committees in recent weeks.
How many GOP state senators broke ranks and opposed Ladapo’s nomination? None.
It’s a difficult outcome to defend. After all, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement did a routine background investigation as part of the confirmation process, and it didn’t go especially well.
The Tallahassee Democrat newspaper reported a few weeks ago that Ladapo’s former supervisor at UCLA discouraged Florida officials from hiring the controversial doctor. “In my opinion, the people of Florida would be better served by a Surgeon General who grounds his policy decisions and recommendations on the best scientific evidence rather than opinions,” the supervisor said in a report prepared by a senior crime intelligence analyst for the Senate.
According to the local outlet, the UCLA supervisor added that Ladapo’s weird theories “created a stressful environment for his research and clinical colleagues and subordinates,” some of whom believed the doctor “violated the duty in the Hippocratic Oath to behave honestly and ethically.”
In the Florida Department of Law Enforcement report, Ladapo’s views were described as having led to “stress and acrimony among his coworkers and supervisors.”
It was not the first time Ladapo’s work at UCLA generated scrutiny.
Circling back to our earlier coverage, it was during his tenure in California when the physician claimed in a USA Today op-ed that his perspective on Covid treatments had been shaped by his experience “taking care of patients with COVID-19 at UCLA’s flagship hospital.” Two weeks later, Ladapo added in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that he had his experience “caring for patients with suspected or diagnosed Covid-19 infections at UCLA.”
Thanks to reporting from The Rachel Maddow Show, those claims have since been called into question. As my colleague Kay Guerrero explained in a report in November, “Several former colleagues of Dr. Joseph Ladapo ... say he misled the public about his experience treating Covid-19 patients.”
One UCLA source also said, in reference to Ladapo, “A lot of people here at UCLA are glad that he is gone because we were embarrassed by his opinions and behavior. At the same time, we don’t wish this on the people of Florida. They don’t deserve to have someone like him making their health decisions.”
The reporting came on the heels of a Ladapo press conference in which he was critical of Covid testing.
A few months prior, Ladapo questioned the efficacy of Covid-19 vaccines, denounced vaccine requirements, referenced unsubstantiated conspiracy theories to argue against the vaccines, and encouraged Floridians to “stick with their intuition,” as opposed to following the guidance of public health officials who actually know what they’re talking about.
As regular readers may recall, it was around the same time when Ladapo started pushing “innovative” Covid-19 treatments with little track record of success, to the frustration of state physicians and medical experts.
Before taking office, the doctor also spent much of the pandemic questioning the value of vaccines and the efficacy of masks, while simultaneously touting ineffective treatments such as hydroxychloroquine.
It led the editorial board of the Orlando Sentinel to describe Ladapo as a “COVID crank” who’s been “associated with a right-wing group of physicians whose members include a physician who believes infertility and miscarriages are the result of having sex with demons and witches during dreams.”
DeSantis and Republican state senators were made aware of all of this, and they had ample opportunity to find a better qualified physician to serve in the role. But they confirmed him anyway.
As we discussed last month, the broader concern is that many Floridians won’t realize just how little credibility Ladapo has. Many families will see his title and assume the state’s official surgeon general must know what he’s talking about, or he wouldn’t be the state’s official surgeon general.
Traditionally, that might’ve been a safe assumption. In Florida in 2022, skepticism of Ladapo’s advice is probably the safer course.