In an unprecedented move, Florida health authorities are preparing to recommend against giving healthy children the COVID-19 vaccine.
Joseph Ladapo, the state’s anti-mask, anti-vax surgeon general, made the announcement on Monday at a roundtable discussion with representatives from the Florida Department of Health and state politicians, including Gov. Ron DeSantis.
The meeting, titled “The Curtain Closes on Covid Theater,” was organized by DeSantis to evaluate the efficacy of the state’s COVID-19 guidelines.
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After hearing from a slew of vax-skeptic experts handpicked by DeSantis, Ladapo declared, without elaborating, that Florida “is going to be the first state to officially recommend against the COVID-19 vaccines for healthy children.”
The state’s active discouragement of child vaccinations goes against the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for kids aged 5 to 17, as well as the advice of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
The Tampa Bay Times reports that, of the 804,000 Florida children under 16 who got COVID, 42 have died. About a fifth of the state’s children aged 5 to 11 have had at least one COVID vaccination shot.
Peter J. Hotez, co-director of the Texas Children’s Center for Vaccine Development, described Ladapo’s comments on Monday as “extremely reckless.”
“Anti-vaccine rhetoric and sentiments coming from the medical community is especially pernicious because it has the imprimatur of being authoritative,” Hotez, also a professor of pediatrics, molecular virology and microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine, told The Daily Beast. “There will be kids who could develop long COVID as a consequence unnecessarily.”
About 1,000 kids have died from COVID-19 and most hospitalizations occurred during the recent Delta and Omicron waves, Hotez said. Studies have found that about one in seven children are developing long-haul COVID symptoms.
“So for all of these reasons, there’s strong agreement in the medical community and by the Centers for Disease Control and the FDA to recommend vaccinating kids,” he said.
Dr. Louis St. Petery, a Tallahassee pediatric cardiologist, described Ladapo’s announcement to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune as “totally crazy.”
“I understand the choice issue, but to recommend that no healthy children in this state should be vaccinated is off the wall,” he said.
“Vaccines are the way you control viral illnesses and this pandemic has been one of the worst viral illnesses, certainly in my lifetime,” he continued. “[A] recommendation that healthy children don’t get vaccinated is not based on any scientific knowledge and makes absolutely no sense. Hopefully the parents of the state of Florida will ignore it.”
Preaching pseudoscience and flouting CDC guidelines has been Ladapo’s modus operandi throughout the pandemic. In October, he came under fire for refusing to wear a mask while meeting with state Sen. Tina Polsky, despite Polsky requesting it because she was undergoing radiation treatment for breast cancer.
In a statement, he defended himself by claiming masks inhibit his ability to communicate clearly, an excuse Polsky called “shameful” and “an absurdity.” DeSantis stood by his anti-mask, anti-vax ally arguing that it was Polsky’s fault for not cooperating with other communication accommodations Ladapo allegedly proposed.
More recently, Ladapo claimed it was a “lie” that face masks mitigate the spread of COVID-19, adding that doctors who encourage mask-wearing are “zombies.” Last Thursday, he instead argued that “losing those extra pounds” and “eating a nutritious diet” were the best measures to stave off the lethal respiratory disease.
Read it at Tampa Bay Times
