Florida’s most sensible fitness official, touting unproven COVID-19 treatments, is again urging a large organization of others to forget about vaccination, drawing reprimands from doctors who say his advice lacks evidence.
Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo needs men under 40 to shoot from Moderna and Pfizer, he said Friday in a statement. Ladapo cited an “analysis” by anonymous authors from the state’s fitness department, saying those men were in the greatest danger of dying from downtown disorders. after inoculation.
“The positive benefits of vaccination are likely to outweigh this abnormally high threat of heart-related death in men in this age group,” the fitness ministry said Friday.
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Since then, doctors and scientists, as well as the federal government, have sought Ladapo’s advice, saying the “analysis” on which he relies does not corroborate his conclusion. Florida is the only state that opposes vaccinating men between the ages of 18 and 39. .
“It’s irresponsible for a public fitness company to publish something like that,” said Dr. Daniel Salmon, director of the Institute for Vaccine Safety at Johns Hopkins University.
Florida’s eight-page “analysis” calls on its authors, their areas of expertise, or their expertise. He observed only 20 deaths in men in this age organization within 4 weeks of inoculation.
The state’s fitness branch ignored the Palm Beach Post’s requests to provide the main points about its report, adding who conducted the “analysis” and their employment history. The governor’s requests were also not retracted.
The one in the report said it may simply not verify the underlying cause of the deaths. They may simply not determine if a user they tested was inflamed with COVID. The Health Ministry also did not compare cardiac death rates among young men vaccinated with those inflamed with respiratory disease.
“If it were presented to a newspaper, it would be quickly dismissed,” Salmon said.
Another flaw in the state’s reports: It only analyzed death certificates. Epidemiologists say they mention cardiac arrest because other illnesses cause the center to stop. Former Palm Beach County Medical Society President Dr. Larry Bush called the state’s review a “misinterpretation of death certificates. “”
Cardiac arrest is recorded on death certificates, Bush said. “This is the most normal direction to death. “
A death certificate, Bush said, “is irrelevant, unless in conditions like this, other people seek to use it to obtain incorrect information or legal conditions. “
Ladapo said in its statement Friday that men under 40 face an “84 percent increase” in cardiac deaths in the 4 weeks after mRNA vaccination. He repeated that claim Monday on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson.
Over the weekend, Twitter got rid of Ladapo for spreading incorrect information about COVID before restoring it.
Dr. Jason Salemi, an epidemiologist at the University of South Florida, criticized the state Department of Health report for failing to weigh the dangers of vaccination against its benefits. It matched the death certificate on the state report.
“Given the small size of the pattern, even a small misclassification of the cause of death can have significant implications for the study results,” Salemi said in an email.
Salemi noted that more than 940 COVID deaths were recorded among men under 40 in the era that the Health Ministry said it reviewed, from Dec. 15, 2020, to June 1 this year.
“Knowing the quality of the paintings by epidemiologists and other scientists at the state Secretary of Health, I would have expected those other issues to be addressed in their analyses,” Salemi said. with what was shared publicly?”
Ladapo tried to protect his recommendation on Monday. ” Is it really that hard to believe that COVID-19 mRNA vaccines develop myocarditis in young men through 10x, 20x or 30x?
The “analysis” you cited did not mention myocarditis, also known as central inflammation. “You’re talking about something that’s very rare,” Salmon said.
Among all age groups and sex, older children aged 12 to 17 are the most likely to develop central inflammation after the vaccine, according to a December study by a team of scientists led by Dr. Anders Husthrough of the Statens Serum Institute in Denmark. Low rate, between 1 in 2,500 children and 1 in 10,000, according to the researchers.
The federal fitness also criticized Ladapo’s recommendation.
“This resolution is incorrect and far from the science: COVID-19 vaccines have been shown to be effective and serious adverse reactions are rare,” said the spokeswoman for the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services. U. S. S. Secretary of State Sarah Lovenheim told The Orlando Sentinel on Monday — they have been tested on tens of thousands of clinical trial participants, and since then, tens of millions of Americans have obtained COVID-19 vaccines. “
About 14. 6 percent of 50-year-old Florida men received at least one booster, the 17th lowest of any state, according to CDC data. About 60 percent received the initial vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer, or Johnson’s singles dose.
Ladapo has a history of anti-vaccine views.
In June, he opposed vaccinating children under 5, saying the dangers outweighed the benefits. Florida was the only state that saved pediatricians last summer from ordering COVID vaccines for children, angering parents across the state.
In March, he opposed vaccinating older children ages 5 to 17. Florida is the only state that recommends vaccinating children against COVID.
Before Gov. Ron DeSantis named him Florida’s most sensible fitness official, Ladapo touted unproven COVID treatments. He wrote in favor of an anti-cattle pest drug, ivermectin, in November 2020 in the Wall Street Journal.
The University of Florida accelerated hiring for Ladapo, knowing DeSantis was watching him in 2021 to upgrade his outgoing predecessor Scott Rivkees, the Tallahassee Democrat reported last year. Chairman of the Board.
A former Ladapo manager at the University of California, Los Angeles, refused to approve him for the position, a state background check revealed. recommendations on clinical evidence more productive than opinions,” the anonymous former chief said.
DeSantis’ constituency rejected inoculation.
Only thirteen percent of Republicans said in a September poll through the fitness studies organization The Kaiser Family Foundation that they planned to get, or had received, the newest coronavirus boosters designed to combat mutations in the omicron variant of the pathogen. About 32% of all adults surveyed said the same.
United, Florida, reported 203 COVID deaths among adults ages 18 to 29 in July, the U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports.
Among COVID patients aged 30 to 49 years and older, states counted 2177 vaccinated patients and 21235 unvaccinated deaths.
The data disaggregates deaths by sex. The Florida Department of Health can release state-specific figures on deaths by vaccination status, but it chooses to do so.
“Obviously, vaccines have made a difference,” said Bush, an infectious disease specialist in Palm Beach County. “If someone doesn’t need this, then the earth is flat. “
Chris Persaud is the knowledge reporter for the Palm Beach Post. Email them to cpersaud@pbpost. com.