Joseph Ladapo, DeSantis’ Demented Doctor, Is About To Get the Grilling He Deserves

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis As a politician by profession, it’s easy for him to put politics first, even if it involves the fight against a virus that has killed 870,000 Americans, including his 61,000 voters. .

“Without a single piece of clinical data to support its decision, the Biden Administration revoked the emergency use authorization for life-saving monoclonal antibody treatments,” DeSantis tweeted. after FDA Monday night announcement that it suspended the approval of two primary therapies provided by centers that he opened with great fanfare just last week.

DeSantis went further, saying, “This indisputable executive order puts treatment out of the hands of medical professionals and will cost some Americans their lives. There are real-life implications for Biden’s medical authoritarianism — Americans’ access to treatments currently depends on the whims of a failed president. “

But Dr. Joseph Ladapo, appointed by DeSantis appointed as the state’s general surgeon and is currently awaiting confirmation from legislators for that position, is a physician. Ladapo therefore has a moral and professional responsibility to make people aware of the clinics opened by the health department he heads. Instead, he asserted the governor’s fiction.

“The federal government has not adequately provided the United States with appropriate outpatient treatment options for COVID-19,” Ladapo said. “Now they’re trying to cover up their failure to deliver on their promise to ‘stop the virus’.”

The truth is that the treatment options offered by the clinics have been rendered all but useless by the Omicron variant. The manufacturer of one of the two major monoclonal treatments acknowledged that in a statement Tuesday.

“The original REGEN-COV antibody cocktail has been used in millions of people and we are incredibly proud of the important role it has played in the pandemic. However, it did not work against #Omicron in lab tests, which tells us that unfortunately it will also not work in people infected with this variant,” said a spokesperson for the agency. Regeneron said. “According to the CDC, more than 99% of COVID-19 cases in the US today are caused by the Omicron variant, and we therefore believe that the FDA’s decision to amend the Emergency Use Authorization is appropriate at a time this.”

Ladapo ignored this inconvenient fact. He once described reliance on vaccines, face coverings and testing as the “triad of stupidity”. And he gave no indication that he would simply continue his reckless and irresponsible senseless act on Wednesday, when he is scheduled to appear at a confirmation hearing. approved by the State Senate Health Policy Committee.

Initial doubts about his suitability arose during his “get acquainted” visit to the Senate after his appointment in October. The senators Ladapo visited included Democrats. Tina Polsky, who has a sign asking all who enter to wear a mask. He and the two men accompanying him strode inside and stood in the waiting area with their faces.

Polsky asks Ladapo to put on a mask. He suggests there are alternatives like going out.

“I said, ‘No, I want to sit here in my office, where I have a chair and a comfortable space, but I want you to wear a mask,’” she recalled to The Daily Beast.

Ladapo faltered and seemed to want to argue.

“But I wasn’t going to get into it,” she recalls, “And it just kept going.”

Polsky had special reason to worry. She has just undergone surgery for breast cancer and is about to begin a radiotherapy regimen that will be interrupted if she tests positive for COVID-19

“I said. ‘I was seriously ill,” she recalls. ‘He said, ‘We could talk about that.’ I say no.’ I continued to back into my assistant’s office because I was so upset. Of course I was wearing a mask.’”

Ladapo continued to refuse.

“I didn’t talk to him about any substantive issues because he wouldn’t wear a mask so I could sit down and chat with him about his credentials,” she recalls. .

She realized that he had the ability to just move on and on.

“I said, ‘You can leave now, if you don’t wear a mask. I knew everything I needed to know about you and your role as the state’s top medical professional,” she recalls.

Ladapo departs.

Polsky told The Daily Beast: “The real kicker was when he was leaving, another of my assistants was outside and heard him say something like, ‘I like to encourage libertarians. there.

When the press covered the meeting, DeSantis defended Ladapo, saying that Polsky was just playing politics. But the president of the state Senate, Wilton Simpson, is a gentleman as well as a Republican.

Simpson sent a memo to all senators and their staff with the subject “Respect and Respect in the Senate.” He reported that he became aware of an “interaction” in Polsky’s office “in which her request that visitors … wear masks were not honored.”

“This incident is even more disappointing given the health challenges Senator Polsky is facing,” the memo said. “However, the diagnosis of cancer should not be taken as a way for people to respect each other’s comfort levels in social interactions during a pandemic. What happened in Senator Polsky’s office is unprofessional and will not be tolerated in the Senate.”

Ladapo said nothing until six days after the incident. He made no apologies.

“It’s important to me to communicate clearly and effectively with people,” he tweeted. “I can’t do it when half of my face is covered.”

Since there is no power in the senate, Ladapo will not be required to cover any of his face when appearing before the Health Committee. Democrats include Senator Janet Cruz, who has promised she will “ask a lot of questions” about Ladapo’s positions.

“In my opinion, he has proven time and time again that data and science are not on his mind when making Florida health and wellness decisions,” she said. with The Daily Beast.

“There’s so much misinformation flying around, it’s important to have Florida’s top doc, if that’s what you want to call him, that is factually well-founded and not presumptive.” political extremism. His rhetoric doesn’t match reality,” she said, adding that “he’s moving in this direction from a governor who feels the same way.”

Cruz noted that Ladapo attended Harvard, but wondered if this was proof that sometimes Ivy League education falls short of “just plain common sense.”

“Or is it just an outspoken opportunist who would say and do anything to advance his career?” she wondered. “I don’t know, but I’m disappointed. I was very disappointed by his many comments.”

Cruz talks about a friend whose 42-year-old grandson was unvaccinated and ended up becoming seriously ill with COVID in a small community hospital. The friend called to ask Cruz to help move him to a hospital in Tampa so that he could be better treated.

“I said, ‘Yeah, try it,’” Cruz recalls.

But the grandson died before he could be moved. Cruz noted that his nephew’s wife was vaccinated and was fine, but is now a widow.

“That’s what drives me crazy, when I had a Harvard-trained doctor who wouldn’t realize the power of vaccines,” Cruz said.

Cruz notes that her husband is a retired nephrologist, a specialist who is turned to by other specialists for difficult cases.

“I watched him dedicate 50 years of his life to saving sick patients,” she said. “I watched this man wake up at four o’clock in the morning trying to save someone… And then I saw a doctor who wouldn’t give the vaccine. I cannot believe that someone can go to one of the best medical facilities in the country and perhaps the world and deny the effectiveness of the vaccine and the fact that it has saved so many lives. people. “

Cruz is all but certain the Health Policy Committee will approve Ladapo anyway. He will then appear before the Ethics and Elections Committee, whose members include Polsky. The full Senate will then vote on the appointment. And it looks like the Senate will honor its own dignity by approving Ladapo as Florida’s top doctor.

The final question is whether he should become a doctor.