Health Experts Dismiss FL Anti -Vax Surg. Gen., Wants To Block Distribution, Put Lives At Risk [View all]

- 'Scientific nonsense’: experts dismiss Florida official’s Covid vaccine remarks,' The Guardian, Jan. 4, 2024. Ed. - State’s politically appointed surgeon general claims vaccines can contaminate human DNA but experts say comment has no merit.

An assertion by Florida’s politically appointed surgeon general that Covid-19 vaccines can contaminate human DNA has been dismissed as “scientific nonsense” by public health experts, who say he is putting lives at risk by wanting to block distribution. Dr Joseph Ladapo, who was handpicked by the state’s far-right governor and fellow vaccine-skeptic, Ron DeSantis, to be the state’s top public health official, called for a halt in the distribution and use of mRNA Covid boosters, in an official bulletin published on Wednesday by the Florida health department.

His assertion that components of the shots “pose a unique and heightened risk of DNA integration into human cells”, potentially causing cancer, is the latest in a series of false claims by Ladapo, a prominent anti-vaxxer previously found to have manipulated data on vaccine safety. Dr Ashish Jha, a former White House Covid-19 response coordinator and dean of Brown University’s school of public health, said Ladapo’s position has no merit.

“We’ve seen this pattern from Dr Ladapo that every few months he raises some new concern and it quickly gets debunked,” he told the Washington Post, referring to an erroneous claim in Sept. that the latest release of Covid boosters had not been tested on humans. “This idea of DNA fragments, it’s scientific nonsense. People who understand how these vaccines are made and administered understand that there is no risk here.”

Dr David Gorski, professor of surgery and oncology at Wayne State University and managing editor of Science-Based Medicine, which debunks misinformation in medicine, told the newspaper: “I’ve never seen a state health authority parrot anti-vaccine disinformation as a justification for stopping the use of a vaccine that has saved so many lives before.” The Harvard-educated Ladapo is aligned with a rightwing group called America’s Frontline Doctors, which has pushed bogus Covid-19 cures...
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/04/florida-surgeon-general-covid-vaccine-misinformation-joseph-ladapo