Florida Officials Deleted Data From COVID Vax Study: Report

A COVID-19 study that formed the basis of the Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo’s alarming recommendation that young men not get a certain type of vaccination had key data and statistics deleted from it before publication, according to drafts of that analysis obtained by the Tampa Bay Times. The deletions falsely made it appear as though the mRNA vaccine posed a larger risk of cardiac issues than the actual virus itself, the Times reported. Off the back of the final analysis, however, Ladapo advised that men aged 18 to 39 faced an “abnormally high risk of cardiac-related death” should they get the shot. “This is a grave violation of research integrity,” Matt Hitchings, an infectious disease expert at the University of Florida, told the Times. “[The vaccine] has done a lot to advance the health of people of Florida and he’s encouraging people to mistrust it.” He said it seemed as though the missing context did not fit the narrative the surgeon general wanted to push, adding, “You can call it a lie by omission.”